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On  the  Great 
American  Plateau 


Wanderings   among  Canyons  and 

Buttes,    in  the   Land  of    the 

Cliff-Dweller,    and    the 

Indian  of  To-day. 


By 

T.  Mitchell  Prudden 


Illustrated  with   Photographs,  and  with   Original 
Drawings  I  y.  .Kdwa/d  Lea.nwg. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


New    York    and    London 
Ube  Ikntc  fcerbocfcer 
1907 


\ 
I 


COPYRIGHT,  1906 

BY 
T.  MITCHELL  PRUDDEN 


t  * 


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tlbe  Iknicftcrbocftec  ipress,  mew 


PREFACE 

THESE  glimpses  of  the  rugged  South- 
west country,  with  its  quaint 
aborigines  and  the  ruins  of  an 
elder  folk,  already  in  part  have  been  pub- 
lished in  the  magazines.  They  are  here 
brought  together  in  the  hope  that  some 
other  town  dweller,  after  the  rush  and 
turmoil  of  his  winter's  work,  may  be  led 
to  wander  away  from  the  beaten  tracks 
into  the  serene  and  inspiring  solitudes 
of  this  land  of  wide  horizons. 

The  writer  is  indebted  to  the  courtesy 
of  the  Messrs.  Harper  and  Brothers  for 
permission  to  publish  in  this  form  such 
of  the  material  as  has  appeared  in  Harper's 
Magazine,  and  to  The  American  Anthro- 
pologist for  consent  to  similar  use  of  an 
article  from  its  pages. 

T.    M.    P. 

NEW  YORK,  June,  1906. 


256986 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  pAGB 

I. — A    GLIMPSE     OF     THE     GREAT 

PLATEAU  .          .          .          .          i 
II. — DAYS  IN  THE  SADDLE         .          .        13 
III. — OLD  AMERICANS    OF    THE    PLA- 
TEAU COUNTRY  .          .        24 
IV. — UNDER  THE  SPELL  OF  THE  GRAND 

CANYON    ....       36 
V. — A    LITTLE    STORY    OF    WORLD- 
MAKING    ....        72 
VI. — A       SUMMER       AMONG       CLIFF 

DWELLINGS         ...       90 
VII. — PRIMITIVE    AMERICAN     HOUSE- 
BUILDERS  ....      137 
VIII.- — FORGOTTEN  PATHWAYS  ON  THE 

GREAT  PLATEAU  .          .176 

IX. — ACROSS  THE  PLATEAU  BY  RAIL 

AND  TRAIL  .         .         .     197 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

SENTINELS  OF  THE  PLATEAU   Frontispiece 

A  BROWN  PAGAN  OF  THE  PLATEAU         .  4 

HORSES  OF  ALL  DEGREES  OF  DEPRAVITY  10 

THE  MULE  is  READY  ....  14 

A  TRAIL  ALONG  A  DEEP  ARROYO            .  18 

A  WAYSIDE  HOME  ON  THE  PLATEAU      .  22 

A  PUEBLO  OF  THE  HOPI        ...  26 

A  NAVAJO  HOGAN        ....  30 

NAVAJO  VISITORS  IN  CAMP             .          .  34 

LOOKING  ACROSS  THE  GRAND  CANYON  .  38 

A  LONG  HOT  DAY        ....  44 

A  WAY  BETWEEN  LOFTY  MESAS              .  52 

BATTLEMENTS  OF  THE  CANYON'S  RIM     .  58 

UPPER  LEDGES  OF  THE  CANYON  WALL  64 
TEMPLES    AND    TOWERS    WITHIN    THE 

GRAND  CANYON    ....  68 

THE  WILY  COYOTE       ....  80 
MILES    OF   GORGEOUS   PINNACLES    AND 

BUTTES        .....  86 

THE  MAKING  OF  A  NAVAJO  BLANKET      .  96 
CLIFF  HOUSES  IN  A  CAVE     .          .          .      100 

vii 


viii  fllluatrations 


PAGE 


SANDALS  OF  THE  CLIFF-DWELLER  .  104 

SKILFUL  PREHISTORIC  MASONRY  .  .  108 
ARROW-HEADS,  SPEAR-HEADS,  ETC.,  OF 

THE  CLIFF-FOLK  .  .  .  .112 
PREHISTORIC  PICTOGRAPHS  .  .116 

POTTERY  OF  THE  CLIFF-DWELLER  .  120 

RELICS  OF  A  PRIMITIVE  CULTURE  .  128 
A  PRIMITIVE  LODGE  ON  THE  FACE  OF  A 

CLIFF  .....  140 
A  PREHISTORIC  BURIAL  MOUND  .  .150 
A  GREAT  RUIN  AT  THE  HEAD  OF  A 

GULCH  .....  156 

A  CLIFF  TOWN  IN  RUINS  .  .  .  160 

A  Row  OF  CLIFF-HOUSES  ON  A  LEDGE  .  164 

A  TOWER  OF  THE  CLIFF-DWELLERS  .  170 

A  SMALL  CLIFF  DWELLING  IN  A  CAVE  .  174 
A  NAVAJO  SHEEP  HERDER  AND  His 

BURROS  .....  184 

A  CORNER  OF  THE  ZUNI  PUEBLO  .  188 

HOMES  OF  THE  CAVE-DWELLERS  .  .  192 

DAUGHTERS  OF  THE  DESERT  .  .  200 

AN  INSCRIPTION  OF  A  DON  ON  EL  MORRO  216 

A  BEARER  OF  WATER  AT  ZUNI  .  .  222 

HOPI  FOLKS  .....  230 

THE  ACCIDENT  OF  COLOUR  AND  GARB  .  234 

Map At  End 


On  the  Great  American  Plateau 


. 


On  the  Great  American 

Plateau 


CHAPTER  I 

A     GLIMPSE     OF    THE     GREAT     PLATEAU 

THE    Great    Plateau   of   the  United 
States  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains reaches  far  up  into  Wyoming, 
lies   upon   the  borderlands   of   Utah   and 
Colorado,    and   broadens   southward   over 
the  upper  half  of  Arizona  and  the  north- 
west corner  of  New  Mexico. 

Multitudes  of  desolate  valleys  and  can- 
yons have  been  carved  out  of  this  great 
highland,  thousands  of  feet  deep  in  places, 
by  unnumbered  ages  of  erosion.  These 


2  IDbe  Great  plateau 

are  now  almost  wholly  dry,  save  when  a 
cloud-burst  or  a  storm  on  the  far  moun- 
tains sends  a  mad  torrent  roaring  down. 
The  higher  regions  range  from  seven  to 
eleven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  vast 
rugged  platforms  bordered  by  winding 
cliffs.  Upon  some  of  these,  great  pine 
forests  stretch  for  hundreds  of  miles 
guarding  their  primeval  solitudes. 

The  tops  of  many  mesas  and  tablelands 
are  clad  with  dense  growths  of  pinon, 
juniper,  and  cedar;  while  on  the  lower 
levels,  uncouth  weeds,  scattered  tufts 
of  grass,  the  cactus,  the  Spanish  bayonet, 
the  sage-brush,  and  the  greasewood  make 
shift  to  gather  what  little  moisture  they 
may  need  from  the  deep  recesses  of  the 
soil.  Along  some  of  the  stream  beds 
great  cottonwoods  afford  a  generous  shel- 
ter from  the  sun.  In  open  glades  and 
forests  here  and  there  quaint  brilliant 
flowers  in  their  season  smile  back  a  jaunty 


H    first  Glimpse 


defiance  to  the  austere  earth.  In  many  of 
the  broader  valleys  the  sand  lies  deep  or 
drifts  in  blinding  clouds  upon  the  air. 

This  land  of  mighty  wind-swept  up- 
lands and  bewildering  gorges,  of  forest 
and  desert  and  plain,  lies  to-day  almost 
as  the  Spaniards  found  it  more  than 
three  hundred  years  ago.  Some  favoured 
valleys  have  yielded  to  the  magic 
touch  of  irrigation,  and  small  farming 
hamlets  nestle  beside  the  waterways. 
Along  the  line  of  the  few  railways  which 
have  pushed  across  the  plateau  in  quest 
of  the  Pacific  are  widely  sundered  uncouth, 
villages.  But  get  out  of  sight  of  the 
settlements  and  out  of  hearing  of  the 
locomotives,  and  you  are  face  to  face  with 
the  naked  earth  as  the  great  sculptors, 
flood,  wind,  and  sand,  have  left  it. 

One  might  belong  to  almost  any  century 
since  the  world  was  peopled ;  and  the  folks 
now  and  then  encountered  are  more  than 


ZEbe  (Breat  plateau 


likely  to  be  brown  pagans  who  still  people 
the  earth  and  air  with  gods  of  their  own, 
live  in  the  thrall  of  strange  superstitions  f 
and  know  the  day  and  its  happenings  as 
only  the  out-of-door  folk  can.  To  these 
Indians,  beasts  and  plants  talk,  the  wind 
whispers,  while  the  sun  and  the  rain 
study  their  welfare  or  plot  their  undoing. 

The  story  of  this  great  plateau  tells  of 
ages  in  which  the  world  was  slowly  moulded 
by  fire  and  flood,  and  carved  by  the  re- 
lentless elements.  Dry  land  was  con- 
jured from  great  interior  seas  and  lifted 
into  vast  uplands,  then  torn  and  tilted 
and  gullied  as  new  gigantic  rivers  sought 
new  highways  to  the  sea.  Life  came  and 
traced  its  records  here  and  there  upon  the 
pages  of  the  great  stone  book. 

The  vast  tableland  is  dumb  anent  the 
coming  of  man.  But  we  find  the  ruins  of 
his  abandoned  homes  all  over  the  southern 
segment  of  the  plateau,  straggling  out  upon 


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H  ffirst  Glimpse 


its  eastern  and  its  western  fringes.  Cliff- 
dwellers  and  cave-dwellers,  dwellers  upon 
the  tops  of  lofty  mesas  and  in  snug  valleys 
at  their  feet,  all  are  gone;  and  their 
crumbling  homes  are  desolate. 

It  was  not  until  the  Spaniards  came 
prying  up  upon  the  plateau  that  the 
Pueblo  and  other  Indians  whose  descend- 
ants still  wander  the  old  pathways  were 
dragged,  very  much  against  their  will, 
out  of  the  languid  prehistoric  silences. 
Then  came  the  conquests  of  the  Spaniards, 
followed  by  a  quarter  of  a  century  of 
Mexican  rule. 

At  last  the  Great  Plateau,  austere  as 
ever,  is  gathered  to  the  fold  of  the  United 
States.  Its  wayside  stories,  wild,  quaint, 
pathetic,  it  tells  to  the  wanderer  in  tune 
with  its  spirit  along  its  ancient  pathways. 
It  has  received  the  hunter,  the  trapper, 
the  explorer,  into  its  capacious  bosom- 
to  return  or  not  as  fortune  and  the  Indian 


ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 


willed.  The  cowboy  has  spied  out  its 
fastnesses ;  the  railway  engineer  has  marked 
in  toil  and  hardship  the  routes  along 
which  in  later  time  the  streams  of  life 
and  industry  and  trade  surge  to  and  fro. 
The  surveyor  has  projected  his  lines  over 
its  arid  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand 
square  miles.  But  the  Great  Plateau 
yields  very  grudgingly  to  the  touch  of 
civilisation.  It  opens  here  and  there  a 
narrow  way  for  the  hurrying  trains, 
closing  its  great  silences  behind  them  as 
they  vanish,  then  rolls  away  their  pol- 
luting trails  of  smoke  into  its  vast  aerial 
spaces,  and  falls  asleep  again. 

The  part  of  the  plateau  which  on  the 
whole  is  most  attractive  to  the  seeker  of 
adventure  in  this  land  of  wide  horizons  is 
that  which  lies  between  the  Denver  and 
Rio  Grande  Railroad  on  the  north  and  the 
Santa  Fe  Railway  and  the  country  to 
which  it  ministers  on  the  south.  The 


H  jffrst  Glimpse 


Santa  Fe  crosses  through  the  heart  of  the 
plateau  over  a  region  austere  and  forbid- 
ding enough  it  is  true,  from  the  car  window, 
for  all  its  miles  of  gorgeous  cliffs  and  noble 
forests.  But  it  is  so  lavish  in  stories  of 
the  world's  fashioning,  so  rich  in  fading 
glimpses  of  strange  old  barbarians  who 
are  gone,  so  quaintly  peopled  with  kindly 
children  of  the  earth  and  the  sun  who  bid 
one  welcome  to  homes  and  firesides  where 
for  centuries  they  have  foregathered;  a 
land  withal  so  alluring  for  its  absolute 
freedom  from  fret  and  fume,  where  you 
and  you  alone  are  owner  of  the  day,  that 
when  once  you  have  broken  the  link  which 
bound  you  to  the  rails  and  head  off  into 
the  dreamy,  shimmering  mazes  which 
lure  you  on  and  on,  it  will  be  strange  indeed 
if  you  do  not  for  some  lucid  hours  care 
least  of  all  things  whether  the  fortunes  of 
the  way  are  ever  to  lead  you  back. 

Nothing  matters  much  so  long  as  you 


8  Ube  Great  plateau 

can  find  a  little  water  for  yourself  and  your 
faithful  beasts,  and  a  few  stray  sticks 
to  cook  your  simple  fare.  Some  line  of 
curious,  brilliant  buttes  upon  the  far 
horizon,  some  faint  tradition  of  a  crum- 
bling ruin  over  the  long  divide,  some 
rumour  of  an  assemblage  of  the  clans  in 
ceremonial  dances  which  bridge  the  years 
between  the  age  of  stone  and  the  age  of 
steam,  or  mayhap  only  the  whim  to  see 
where  you  will  get  to  if  you  follow  the 
meagre  trail  winding  up  the  valley  ,- 
such  are  the  sufficient  aims  of  days  and 
weeks  of  wandering  on  the  Great  Plateau 
when  once  you  have  forgotten  that  the 
twentieth  century  has  just  begun,  and 
have  drifted  back  into  the  simple  days 
and  ways  before  the  Spaniards  came. 

Remote  as  are  many  parts  of  the  Great 
Plateau  from  the  usual  lines  of  travel, 
the  tourist  may  get  close  to  the  archaeo- 
logic  heart  of  the  land,  may  see  varied 


H  jfirst  Glimpse 


phases  of  native  Indian  life,  and  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  and  the  grandest  of 
the  canyons,  through  the  ministrations 
of  established  public  conveyances  and 
the  occasional  use  of  a  ranchman's  team. 
But  for  the  longer  journeys  into  the 
recesses  of  the  plateau,  the  explorer  must 
secure  hardy  ponies  or  mules,  accustomed 
to  forage  for  themselves  on  the  scantiest 
of  herbage,  and  capable,  if  need  be,  of 
sustaining  life  for  a  day  or  two  on  the 
willow  twigs  and  rank  dried  weeds  of  the 
bottoms.  The  pack  is  entrusted  to  mules) 
A  canvas  wagon-sheet  and  a  blanket  must 

« 

serve  in  lieu  of  tent  and  bed.  It  is  no 
hardship,  however,  in  this  dry  and  bracing 
air,  to  sleep  on  the  ground  under  the  stars. 
Unless  one  knows  the  country  well  and 
is  accustomed  to  the  management  of 
horses  and  mules  of  all  degrees  of  de- 
pravity, it  is  hazardous  to  venture  out 
upon  the  plateau  and  into  the  Indian 


io  Ube  <5reat  plateau 

country  unattended.  Here  is  elemental 
life,  here  is  genuine  freedom;  but  these 
exalted  states  are  not  to  be  won  without 
strict  conformity  to  the  inexorable  re- 
quirements of  the  land.  Water  is  often 
very  scanty,  and  usually,  to  the  uninitiated, 
very  hard  to  find;  and  the  ignorant  and 
foolhardy  can  readily  die  from  thirst. 
In  the  high  country  the  great  pines 
sway  and  sing  in  the  wind  at  night  and 
morning.  The  pinons  and  cedars  on  the 
lower  levels  murmur  fitfully  to  the  passing 
breeze.  Small  lizards  rustle  in  the  dried 
grass  as  they  whisk  from  your  presence. 
Prairie  dogs  here  and  there  chatter  at  you 
as  you  pass.  Now  and  then  in  the  forest 
a  mountain  lion  steals  away  among  the 
pines,  or  a  surprised  bob-cat  dashes  off 
around  the  rocks.  Deer  and  antelope  still 
feed  in  the  remoter  uplands.  The  mount- 
ain sheep  are  gone.  Bear  are  seldom 
encountered.  As  night  comes  on,  the  howls 


C/3 

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H  jfirst  Glimpse 


and  barks  of  the  wily  coyotes  circling  far 
about  the  camp  are  weird  and  mournful. 
But  the  great  country  stretching  away  for 
hundreds  of  miles  has  scarce  a  human 
habitation,  few  wild  animals  and  birds, 
and  these  largely  of  the  still  kind. 

It  is  very  hot  in  the  daytime,  with  the 
sun  glaring  straight  at  one  from  above 
and  back  at  him  from  the  rocks.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  shade  for  twenty  miles,  except 
under  the  mules,  —  and  perhaps  the  mules 
kick.  But  it  is  a  dry  heat  which  does  not 
depress  and  exhaust  ;  it  stimulates  while  it 
scorches. 

The  nights  are  always  deliciously  cool. 
Altogether  the  wanderer  who  does  not 
mind  the  wholesome  sunburn  upon  the 
skin,  and  has  a  good  supply  of  water,  is 
as  free  and  comfortable  and  happy  as  good 
mortals  deserve  to  be.  How  far  away 
the  great  city  seems!  And  for  the  thou- 
sand unnecessary  things  which  we  gather 


12  Ube  (Bveat  plateau 

about  us  in  our  winter  thralldom  and  dote 
upon,  how  pitiful  are  they,  if  we  deign 
to  recall  them!  This  is  living.  We  get 
down  to  sheer  manhood,  face  to  face  with 
the  bare,  relentless,  fascinating  old  earth. 
And  ever  above  is  the  marvellous  sky  and 
ever  a  nameless  witchery  of  the  air,  making 
far  things  strange  and  beautiful,  and  more 
than  all  else  luring  the  wanderer  back  to 
these  hot  wastes  year  after  year. 


CHAPTER  II 

DAYS  IN  THE  SADDLE 

ONE  day  in  the  saddle  in  the  plateau 
country  is  much  like  another,  save 
for  the  ever-changing  scene  and 
the  mild  adventures  of  the  way.     Before 
dawn  the  Indian  is  off  to  track  and  bring 
in   the  beasts,   which  have  been   turned 
adrift  to   forage   for   themselves   through 
the  night. 

Now,  one  by  one,  jumbled  heaps  of 
blankets,  scattered  on  the  ground,  heave 
and  shift,  and  at  length  disclose  each  a 
man,  who  quickly  satisfies  the  modest 
claims  of  the  toilet,  and  at  once  gets  to 
work  at  the  breakfast.  A  fire  is  made, 
the  biscuit  are  baked  in  an  iron  pot  set 
upon  coals  with  a  small  fire  alight  upon 

13 


14  Ube  Oreat  plateau 

the  lid.  The  ground  is  seat  and  table. 
There  is  no  dallying  with  the  breakfast. 
The  mules  are  packed  early,  for  it  gets 
hot  right  away  after  sunrise. 

So  the  beasts  get  their  last  sip  of  water, 
the  canteens  are  filled,  and  the  caravan 
moves  off  in  single  file.  The  gait  is 
usually  a  jog-trot  or  a  walk.  The  distance 
covered  in  a  day  depends  upon  the  situa- 
tion of  water  along  the  route.  The 
average  is  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
miles. 

The  march  in  summer  is  always 
strenuous  in  the  South-west,  because  of 
the  burning  sun.  But  in  the  high  country 
refreshing  breezes  are  almost  always  astir, 
and  the  vast  sweep  of  the  vision,  the  great 
masses  of  marvellous  colour  in  sand  and 
cliff  and  butte,  the  matchless  sky,  and 
the  glorious  freedom  of  the  life  banish 
all  thought  of  hardship,  and  hide  fatigue 
in  the  inspiration  of  a  careless  holiday. 


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Daps  in  tbe  SafcMe  15 

We  skirt  the  bases  of  gigantic  cliffs 
which,  seen  from  near  and  far  below,  look 
like  the  sides  of  mountain  ranges.  We 
scramble  up  through  rugged  gullies  to  the 
top,  and  find  that  they  are  level  plateaus 
scantily  clad  with  soil,  and  broken  by 
shrub  and  pinon  and  cedar.  The  Spanish 
bayonet  bristles  and  great  scrawny  cac- 
tuses stare  at  us.  The  eye  wanders  off 
to  other  uplands  scored  and  furrowed  by 
gorges  of  wildest  form,  and  catches  still  far- 
ther away  the  shadowy  uplift  of  mountain 
peaks — the  Henrys,  the  La  Sals,  the  Blues 
the  Carrisos,  San  Mateo,  the  San  Francisco 
peaks,  and  the  long  dome  of  old  Navajo, 
faint  and  tremulous  through  miles  of 
shimmering  space. 

Away  off  on  the  San  Juan  desert  or 
along  the  barren  reaches  of  the  Colorado 
Chiquito,  great  sand  pillars  swirl  upward 
on  the  wind  and  sway  and  crumble  and 
fade,  while  the  under  surfaces  of  fleecy 


1 6  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

cloud-banks  sailing  over  their  dreadful 
wastes  are  lurid  from  the  hot  reflection 
of  the  sand. 

We  swing  across  the  plateau  and  slide 
or  clamber  down  again.  But  with  the 
descent  of  a  few  hundred  feet  we  are  in 
another  world.  The  vision  no  longer 
revels  in  those  upland  spaces  which  raise 
the  spirit  into  exultant  mastery.  It  may 
be  a  desperate  labyrinth  of  gorges  along 
which  now  we  fare,  whose  grotesque  and 
threatening  walls  crowd  in  upon  the  way 
in  stolid,  brutal  insistence.  It  may  be  a 
broad  valley  with  dry,  level,  grassy  bottom, 
and  bordered  by  miles  of  majestic  cliffs 
beset  with  alcoves  here  and  there,  whose 
blissful  shadows  lure  one  from  the  way. 

Perhaps  ahead  of  us  the  valley  narrows, 
the  buttressed  cliffs  forming  a  gigantic 
colonnade  down  which  we  ride,  while 
great  rock  pillars  and  colossal  obelisks 
tower  here  and  there  above  the  walls 


Baps  in  tbe  SafcMe  17 

gleaming  in  grey  or  buff  or  pink  or  red 
against  the  rich  blue  background  of  the  sky. 

Or  the  valley  opens  out  upon  a  sweep 
of  sandy  plain,  its  buff  and  yellow  stretches 
beset  with  billowy  masses  of  the  sage, 
now  grey,  now  lilac-tinted  through  the 
shimmering  air,  with  an  elusive  purple 
among  the  shadows  of  its  leaves,  which, 
as  one  rustles  by  them,  fling  a  faint  aroma 
on  the  air.  We  look  across  this  tremulous 
stretch  of  lilac  and  purple  and  gold,  like 
a  brilliant  restless  sea  struck  motionless, 
with  its  waves  abreak,  to  the  far  horizon 
upon  which  rise  miles  of  gorgeous  buttes — 
white,  yellow,  purple,  orange,  and  brown- 
all  alive  with  the  intense  shadows  which 
come  and  go  upon  their  rugged  faces. 

Sometimes  we  drop  suddenly  out  of 
the  shimmering  spaces  of  the  plain  and 
ride  for  miles  along  the  bottom  of  huge 
arroyos  which  the  floods  have  washed  out 
of  the  deep  alluvium. 


1 8  TTbe  Great  plateau 

Now  and  then  the  quivering  air  plays 
strange  tricks  with  the  vision  as  we 
straggle  across  the  sandy  reaches  of  the 
bottoms.  In  the  mirage  the  cliffs  shoot 
up  in  wavering  pinnacles,  rock  columns 
rise  and  hang  in  swaying  pointed  masses 
above  their  real  selves,  then  slowly  dwindle 
and  fade  or  draw  upward  and  flash  out 
of  sight.  A  few  times  I  have  seen  beauti- 
ful lakes  suddenly  appear  across  the  trail, 
with  foamed-tipped  waves  breaking  in 
silence  upon  green  shores,  which  glided 
along  the  burning  sand  to  vanish  in  a 
breath. 

From  the  high  uplands  scudding  clouds 
sometimes  shoot  down  long  wavering 
shower-slants,  which  fade  at  the  touch 
of  the  hot,  dry  air  before  they  reach  the 
earth.  One  may  see  afar,  or  encounter, 
brief  veil-like  showers,  which  are  con- 
jured into  being  with  never  a  cloud  in 
all  the  sky. 


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in  tbe  Sa&Me  19 


Although  continuous  rainfall  is  infre- 
quent upon  the  wide  expanses  of  the 
plateau  in  summer,  thunder-showers  of 
terrific  violence  sometimes  sweep  across 
them.  And  I  know  of  no  more  severe  test 
of  serenity  of  spirit  than  to  face  one  of 
these  in  its  unmitigated  violence.  If  there 
were  but  a  rock  or  tree  or  bush  under 
which  one  could  secure  at  least  the  moral 
support  of  a  shelter,  the  strain  would  be 
less  severe.  Still  one  may  summon  for- 
titude at  last  to  face  the  rage  and  fury 
of  the  wind  and  rain,  and  even  to  exult 
in  the  flash  and  roar  and  clatter  of  the 
bolts  which  fall  in  quick  succession  all 
about  one.  When  the  demon  of  the 
storm  is  once  in  possession,  one  loses  all 
thought  of  danger,  and  is  fairly  regretful 
when  at  last,  with  a  sudden  swish,  the 
last  pulse  of  the  downpour  sweeps  by 
and  the  black  chaos  goes  roaring  off. 

But  when,    as   not  rarely   happens   in 


20  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

these  violent  showers,  out  of  the  seething 
alembic  hailstones  are  hurled  down  upon 
one,  neither  serenity  nor  bravado  is  of 
much  avail.  He  gets  black  and  blue 
welts  upon  his  back  and  shoulders  just 
the  same,  and  the  horses  go  wild  with 
terror  and  pain  of  the  fiendish  bombard- 
ment. 

Here  and  there  we  come  upon  ruins  of 
the  old  cliff-dwellers,  plastered  on  the 
faces  of  the  ledges,  or  atop  of  dizzy  pin- 
nacles of  rock,  or  in  sags  of  the  hills,  where 
trickling  springs  may  still  be  found. 
Broken  pottery  in  places  litters  the  ground 
about  these  ruins,  and  the  old  burial- 
places  tell  in  no  doubtful  fashion,  to  him 
who  knows  how  to  read  the  story,  the  age 
and  populousness  of  these  long-forgotten 
homes. 

The  animals  must  be  well  cared  for  in 
the  long,  arduous  jaunts,  no  matter  how 
man  is  neglected.  Because,  in  these  dry, 


in  tbe  SafcMe  21 


desolate  countries,  to  be  left  afoot  is  to 
face  such  hardships  as  few  care  to  risk. 
The  horse  is  fed  first,  watered  first,  and 
first  unburdened  for  his  rest.  How  he 
will  fare  in  the  night  forage  is  the  last 
thing  in  your  consciousness  before  you 
sleep.  How  he  has  fared,  the  first  query 
of  the  morning.  And  all  day  long  he  is 
your  comrade.  Sharing  thus  the  varied 
fortunes  of  the  way,  you  fall  into  terms 
of  intimacy  and  often  affection. 

The  animals  of  the  South-west  country 
are  wonted  to  long  journeys  and  serious 
hardship.  But  that  which  most  relent- 
lessly saps  the  energy  and  daunts  the 
spirit  is  lack  of  water.  A  horse  or  mule 
may  now  and  then  go  on  for  two  hot  days 
and  a  night  without  it;  but  this  may  be 
his  ruin,  for  he  is  apt  to  lose  heart  and 
give  up  if  such  demands  be  frequent. 
The  men  in  a  small  company  can  carry 
water  enough  for  themselves  in  canteens 


22  ZTbe  Great  flMateau 

and  a  small  keg  for  two  dry  days.  But 
dry  camps  are  not  cheerful,  and  one  ought 
to  be  mighty  certain  of  water  of  some  sort 
before  dark  on  the  second  night. 

Now  and  then  one  rides  forward  for  a 
chat  with  a  comrade;  he  may  beguile 
the  way  with  a  song.  The  Indian  strikes 
up  some  weird  refrain;  then  one  shrieks 
at  the  pack-mules  as  they  stray.  But 
the  order  is  mostly  single  file,  and  the 
trail  is  mostly  silent.  It  is  a  dreamy, 
vacuous  life  which  one  slips  away  into  as 
the  hot  hours  pass.  He  is  half  conscious 
of  the  splendid  sky  and  the  lengthening 
shadows  on  cliff  and  plain  as  he  jogs  on 
and  on,  but  the  vision  of  memory  is  often 
more  vivid  than  the  impression  of  the 
hour. 

So  at  last  we  come  to  the  camping-place. 
Sometimes  this  is  in  the  cozy  shelter  of  a 
friendly  cottonwood,  or  in  the  lee  of  a 
gigantic  butte  towering  above  the  plain, 


iu 


in  tbe  SafcMe  23 


or  in  a  shallow  cave  in  the  ledges  of  a 
rugged  ravine.  More  often  the  camp  is 
out  in  the  open  among  the  sage-brush  or 
where  a  trickle  or  puddle  or  pool  of  water 
is  found.  Wherever  it  may  be,  there  are 
no  tents  to  pitch,  nothing  necessary  but 
forage  for  the  horses,  water,  a  little  wood, 
and  a  few  square  feet  of  earth.  Drop  your 
packs  and  build  a  fire  and  you  are  at  home. 
The  horses  are  hobbled  and  turned 
adrift,  supper  is  materialised  and,  if  the 
night  be  at  hand,  hurriedly  and  sleepily 
despatched.  Each  man  pre-empts  a  little 
patch  of  ground,  which  he  levels  off  as 
best  he  can.  The  blankets  are  spread 
early,  for  the  nights  are  always  cool;  and 
as  the  stars  come  out  one  may  see  here 
and  there  the  gleam  of  pipes  alight,  as, 
half  ensconced  in  his  nest,  the  smoker 
wooes  the  last  and  sweetest  solace  of  the 
day  before  he  tastes  oblivion.  Then  sun- 
rise is  at  hand  again.  So  the  days  go. 


CHAPTER  III 

OLD  AMERICANS  OF  THE  PLATEAU  COUNTRY 

PEOPLE    rarely    consider    what    an 
interesting  experiment  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  man  was  going  on  here  in 
America  when  Columbus  set  out  on  his 
crazy  adventure  across  the  sea,  nor  how 
abruptly  the  experiment  ended  when  the 
white  race  and  the  brown  race  met.     For 
most  of  us  the  history  of  America  begins 
in  1492. 

We,  of  course,  all  have  some  notion, 
framed  partly  from  fact,  largely  from 
fiction,  of  the  original  possessors  of  our 
continent.  But,  after  all,  I  fancy  that 
most  of  us  only  dimly  realise  that  back  of 
the  wars  which  made  the  country  free, 
back  of  the  struggle  with  forest  and  soil 

24 


Hmericans  25 


and  forbidding  wastes  which  made  it 
rich,  back  of  the  bold  adventures  which 
made  it  known,  stretch  long  ages,  in  which 
masses  of  dusky  people,  from  one  seaboard 
to  the  other,  lived  out  their  simple  lives 
face  to  face  with  nature,  won  their  way 
slowly  through  savagery  to  barbarism,  and 
even  here  and  there  began  to  press  eagerly 
through  the  portals  which  open  toward 
civilisation. 

Then  from  countries  in  which  mankind 
had  started  earlier,  or  had  more  quickly 
scaled  the  heights  of  communal  life,  came 
the  white  man.  The  native  advance  was 
stayed,  and  soon  the  doors  were  closed 
forever  upon  a  genuine  American  bar- 
barism just  shaping  itself  into  a  crude 
civilisation  in  favoured  corners  of  the 
land.  The  Old  World  experiment  in 
man-culture  was  grafted  on  the  New,  or, 
more  frequently,  replaced  it  altogether. 

But  here  and  there  in  the  South-west 


26  Ube  Great  plateau 

some  small  groups  of  brown  men,  called 
Pueblos  or  village  Indians,  the  wreckage 
of  the  abortive  experiment  in  primitive 
man-culture  in  America,  still  survive. 
These  Indians  are  mostly  in  Arizona  and 
New  Mexico,  living  in  quaint  stone  or 
adobe  houses  in  far-away  fertile  valleys. 
JT  perched  atop  of  great  plateaus.  Until 
within  a  decade  or  two  they  lived  and 
thought  and  worshipped  Powers  unseen 
in  just  such  fashion  as  they  did,  and  in 
the  very  places  where  they  were,  when 
the  Spaniards  found  them  so  long  ago. 

These  Pueblo  Indians  are  not  to  be 
confounded  either  with  the  savages  upon 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  or  in  the  eastern 
interior,  with  whom  much  of  our  early 
national  history  is  concerned,  nor  with  the 
nomadic  tribes  elsewhere  in  the  land. 
Some  of  them  present  to-day  a  significant 
transition  phase  in  the  advance  of  a  people 
from  savagery  toward  civilisation,  whose 


Hmerfcans  27 


study  is  of  priceless  value  in  the  under- 
standing of  the  science  of  man. 

But  each  year  —  nay,  each  month- 
brings  new  ideas,  aims,  and  needs  into  the 
simplicity  of  this  native  life.  Old  tra- 
ditions, old  customs,  old  aspirations,  are 
fading  swiftly  and  surely  in  the  presence 
of  the  white  man.  It  is  humiliating,  not 
only  for  an  American,  but  for  any  educated 
human  being,  to  realise  that  in  this  great, 
rich,  powerful  United  States,  boasting 
ever  of  its  general  enlightenment,  there 
is  neither  the  intelligent  public  spirit  nor 
the  sustained  private  devotion  to  the 
wider  aspects  of  science  to  secure  the 
myths  and  traditions  and  lore  of  these 
wonderful  people  before  this  page  now 
open  upon  the  Story  of  Man  shall  be 
closed  forever.  For  nowhere  else  upon 
this  planet  does  this  particular  illumining 
phase  of  human  life  exist,  nor  will  it  come 
again.  There  are  many  fields  of  science 


<3reat  plateau 


in  which  it  does  not  make  very  much 
difference  if  the  work  which  is  waiting 
to  be  done  shall  wait  a  little  longer.  A 
decade  more  or  less  is  of  little  importance 
in  the  end.  But  here  delay  is  fatal. 

The  school-houses  near  the  Pueblos, 
the  new  requirements  in  food  and  dress, 
the  new  conceptions  of  the  world,  which 
begins  for  them  to  reach  out  beyond  the 
cliffs  upon  the  far  horizon  —  these  all  may 
be  very  important  to  the  material  welfare 
of  such  waifs  from  the  past,  with  the  new 
world  crowding  in  upon  them.  But  it 
means  the  speedy  extinction  of  old  cus- 
toms, in  life  and  worship  and  ceremonial, 
which  still  are  full  of  the  spirit  and  practice 
of  a  primitive  culture.  It  means  that  all 
natural  things  and  happenings  in  their 
out-of-door  world  will  soon  lose  their 
spiritual  impress,  and  that  the  quaint 
myths  out  of  forgotten  centuries  will  fade 
with  the  old  folks  who  still  may  cherish 


Hmericans  29 


them.  When  such  people  get  on  cotton 
shirts,  need  coffee  and  sugar,  want  rum, 
and  begin  to  name  their  sons  after  the 
Presidents,  they  will  not  continue  long  to 
send  messages  to  the  gods  by  rattlesnakes, 
nor  propitiate  the  elements  by  feathers 
and  songs. 

The  Bureau  of  Ethnology  in  Washington 
has  done  admirable  work  already.  Gushing, 
Bandelier,  Lummis,  Stephen,  Matthews, 
Fewkes,  Mrs.  Stevenson,  Hodge,  Holmes, 
Dorsey,  and  others  have  rescued  much. 
But  the  work  should  be  more  extended, 
more  sustained,  more  amply  supported, 
and  must  withal  be  quickly  under  way. 

The  surviving  Pueblo  Indians  are  widely 
scattered  now.  There  are  several  villages 
grouped  along  the  valley  of  the  Rio 
Grande  and  its  tributaries,  which  are 
readily  visited  from  various  Santa  Fe" 
railroad  towns.  The  primitive  old  settle- 
ments, Acoma  and  Zuni,  lie  but  a  few 


30  Ube  Great  plateau 

miles  off  to  the  south  of  the  railroad, 
while  the  Hopi  villages,  far  away  to  the 
north,  in  the  heart  of  the  Great  Plateau, 
are  at  the  end  of  a  more  strenuous  journey 
across  the  desert. 

The  later  chapters  of  this  book  will 
afford  some  glimpses  of  these  quaint 
relics  of  the  early  Americans  and  sug- 
gestions of  the  places  from  which  they 
may  be  most  conveniently  reached. 

The  Navajo  Indians  are  in  many  ways 
as  interesting  as  the  Pueblos,  and  are 
typical  of  a  quite  different  phase  of  abor- 
iginal life,  and  one  which  was  most  largely 
represented  in  America  at  the  time  of 
the  discovery. 

The  Navajo  country  lies  in  the  northern 
belt  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  and  may 
be  most  easily  entered  from  some  of  the 
Santa  Fe  railroad  towns  upon  the  south 
or  from  the  Mancos  region  in  Colorado 
on  the  north. 


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Hmericans  31 


The  Navajo  are  pastoral  folk,  herding 
sheep  and  goats  and  horses  over  their 
great  arid  ranges,  raising  corn  and  a  little 
grain  in  the  moister  bottom  lands,  living 
in  low  earth-covered  huts,  called  hogans, 
in  the  winter,  while  in  the  summer  they 
build  bough  shelters  or  wickiups  near 
their  fields  and  stock  ranges.  They  are 
notable  blanket  weavers,  self-supporting, 
and,  while  nominally  confined  to  their 
great  reservation,  are  scattered  out  beyond 
its  borders  in  all  directions.  They  have 
been  from  the  earliest  times  raiders  and 
plunderers  of  the  Pueblo  and  Mexican 
settlements,  and  are  still  often  aggressive 
and  domineering  to  their  neighbours. 

There  are  rich  Navajo  and  poor  ones; 
there  are  dignified,  impressive,  noble  figures 
among  them.  Altogether  they  are  among 
the  most  interesting  of  the  aborigines 
who  live  in  the  old  fashion,  hold  to  the 
old  deities,  and  maintain  a  degree  of 


32  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

self-respect  and  independence  in  the  face 
of  the  blighting  influences  of  civilisation 
which  is  noteworthy  and  admirable. 

While  the  Navajo  are  peaceable  and  in 
their  fashion  hospitable  to  the  wanderer 
whose  aims  and  purposes  in  their  land  are 
comprehensible  to  them  or  unsuspicious, 
they  will,  themselves  unseen,  keep  a  close 
watch  upon  your  movements  as  you  ride 
day  after  day  over  what  seems  a  tenantless 
waste. 

Sometimes  a  few  lusty,  well-mounted 
fellows  in  gaudy  blankets  will  dash  in 
upon  your  camp,  whooping  and  shrieking, 
draw  up  a  few  feet  away  and  sit  gazing 
at  you,  or  sternly  demand  your  business. 
It  is  regarded  as  good  form  in  the  best 
white  circles  of  the  frontier  to  maintain 
for  a  time  under  these  circumstances  an 
air  of  absolute  inattention  to  this  demon- 
stration. It  would  be  as  difficult  to  in- 
dicate the  apt  moment  when  you  cease 


Bmericans  33 


to  ignore  and  become  aware  of  the  presence 
of  visitors,  as  it  would  be  to  write  a  formula 
for  the  not  more  imperative  social  graces 
of  the  town.  But  if  you  have  not  winced 
at  the  startling  and  uproarious  advent  of 
your  guests,  and  seem  to  have  business 
and  know  how  to  attend  to  it,  your 
visitors  will  doubtless  alight  with  alacrity 
at  your  invitation,  sometimes  without, 
smoke  all  the  tobacco  you  will  give  them, 
eat  all  that  is  left  of  your  meal  no  matter 
how  much  or  of  what  kind,  smoke  some 
more,  and  then  silently  ride  away,  or  in 
hope  of  a  breakfast  camp  beside  you  for 
the  night.  Time  is  not  pressing  to  the 
Navajo,  and  a  day  with  a  solid  meal  and 
tobacco  in  it  is  to  him  a  day  well  spent. 

The  Navajo  will  not  tolerate  mineral 
prospectors  upon  his  reservation  if  he  can 
help  it,  for  he  knows  as  well  as  we  do  that 
the  day  on  which  valuable  ore  shall  be 

discovered  in  his  domain  is  the  day  which 
3 


34  TTbe  Great  plateau 

sounds  his  doom.  So  if  you  can  assure 
the  Navajo  that  you  are  no  gold  seeker 
in  his  land,  and  while  insisting  upon  your 
right  to  go  wherever  you  choose,  are  also 
mindful  of  the  rights  of  the  natural  lords 
of  this  desolation,  you  may  drink  from 
his  springs  and  water  holes;  negotiate 
fodder  from  the  meagre  patches  which  he 
tills ;  buy  a  sheep  from  his  flock  if  you  are 
clever  at  bargaining;  watch  the  women 
weaving  blankets  in  the  shadow  of  a 
scrawny  tree  or  under  a  summer  hut  of 
boughs;  and  now  and  again  you  may 
be  permitted  to  stand  by  at  weird  dances 
or  sit  the  night  out  at  the  uncanny  cere- 
monials of  the  medicine  men. 

There  are  a  few  Utes  still  upon  their 
dwindling  reservation  in  southern  Colo- 
rado, awaiting  extinction  at  the  hands  of 
a  beneficent  government.  A  few  Pah 
Utes  are  scattered  in  southern  Utah  and 
northern  Arizona.  A  small  remnant  of 


•.-•r 


/ 


Navajo  Visitors  in  Camp. 


Bmericans 


35 


the  Havasupai  still  live  upon  their  farms 
at  the  bottom  of  one  of  the  smaller  chasms 
which  open  upon  the  deeps  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  the  Colorado  River.  On  the 
western  borders  of  the  great  highland, 
the  Wallapai  are  gathered.  In  the  country 
which  stretches  southward  from  the  pla- 
teau and  within  the  borders  of  New 
Mexico,  the  wreckage  of  the  fierce  Apache 
is  held  in  qualified  durance  upon  a  Gov- 
ernment reservation.  But  it  is  especially 
the  Navajo  and  the  Pueblo,  lingering  types 
of  the  nomadic  and  the  house-building 
barbarian,  whom  the  wanderer  upon  the 
Great  Plateau  most  often  encounters  to-day. 


CHAPTER  IV 

UNDER  THE  SPELL  OF  THE  GRAND  CANYON. 

THERE    were    ten    of    us  when  we 
started — three    white    men,    one 
Navajo,  two  horses,  one  pony,  one 
broncho,   and  two  mules.     We  had  been 
busy    for    several    days    padding    pack- 
saddles,  mending  blankets,  cleaning  guns, 
and   laying   in  our   stock   of   food — flour, 
sugar,    baking-powder,    bacon,    rice,    oat- 
meal, and  dried  fruit. 

"  Adios ! "  "  Good  luck ! ' '  and  we  turned 
our  faces  westward.  It  was  the  Alamo 
ranch  of  the  Wetherills  at  Mancos,  in 
south-western  Colorado,  the  time  July,  and 
we  were  off  for  that  glorious  plateau 
country  through  which  the  great  Red 

River   of  the   West  has   cut   a  series   of 

36 


TTbe  (BranS  Ganpon  37 

profound  chasms  and  desolate  valleys, 
known  to  the  world  as  the  Canyons  of 
the  Colorado  River. 

People  who  saw  the  Grand  Canyon  in 
the  early  days  left  the  Santa  Fe  Railway 
at  Flagstaff,  and  after  an  all-day  stage 
ride  over  a  shoulder  of  the  San  Francisco 
Mountain,  across  a  small  corner  of  the 
Painted  Desert,  and  through  the  majestic 
pines  of  the  Coconino  Forest,  alighted, 
tired  but  expectant,  in  a  little  camp  of 
tents  close  upon  the  brink  of  trie  Canyon. 

To-day  the  tourist  is  conveyed  by  a 
branch  of  the  Santa  Fe  Railway  from 
Williams,  Arizona,  to  a  modern,  pictur- 
esque, and  most  comfortable  hostelry,  El 
Tovar,  at  the  head  of  the  Bright  Angel 
trail  a  few  miles  below  the  old  camp, 
where  he  commonly  lingers  for  a  day  or 
two  and  then  the  busy  world  reclaims  him. 
Those  who  seek  the  wider  outlook  upon 
the  vast  amphitheatre  at  the  head  of  the 


38  ZTbe  6reat  JMateau 

Grand  Canyon  are  carried  by  stage  a 
dozen  miles  eastward  through  the  great 
pine  forest  to  the  quaint  and  cosy  Grand 
View  Hotel  which  fosters  longer  sojourn. 

But  wherever  he  may  be  and  which 
ever  way  he  came,  he  who  lingers  here 
in  the  presence  of  this  stupendous  and 
alluring  episode  in  world-making,  sooner 
or  later  becomes  conscious  of  a  haunting 
desire  to  know  what  sort  of  land  it  is  of 
which  he  catches  fitful  glimpses  across  this 
bewildering,  palpitating  space.  No  sign 
of  a  human  being  ever  comes  across  to  you, 
it  is  much  too  far  for  sound,  and  you  wonder 
whether  the  tiny  greenish  uplifts  upon  the 
farther  brink  can  be  more  than  saplings. 
And  where  does  it  come  from,  that  broken 
streak  of  water  shimmering  between  the 
cliffs,  and  now  and  then  roaring  up  at  you 
on  the  wind  like  the  great  mad  river  it 
really  is,  a  mile  beneath?  It  seems  to 
come  out  of  a  red  wall  some  twenty  miles 


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ZTbe  Grant)  Cannon  39 

to  your  right.  But  over  that  and  across 
a  narrow  gleam  of  desert  rises  a  hazy  line 
of  grey  cliffs,  with  a  faint  blue  mountain 
dome  beyond,  a  hundred  miles  away. 
Close  under  this,  they  tell  you,  the  great 
river  is  coming  down,  already  buried  deep 
between  gigantic  walls.  You  follow  its 
course  toward  the  west  through  a  maze 
of  temples  and  pinnacles  and  towers,  until 
these  merge  into  the  illimitable  blue  of 
the  sky,  or  are  lost  in  the  fading  tints  of 
sunset. 

This,  then,  is  why  our  faces  are  set 
westward.  We  want  to  see  where  the  old 
Rio  Colorado  comes  from  and  where  it 
goes.  We  want  to  pluck  out  the  heart 
of  its  mystery  in  those  hidden  hundreds 
of  miles  of  awesome  gorges.  We  want 
to  wander  in  the  country  beyond  the 
river  which  the  pioneers  have  told  about 
and  where  the  geologists  have  conjured 
from  the  rocks  such  impressive  secrets 


4o  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

of  the  world's  workshop.  And  we  want 
to  soak  in  Arizona  sunshine  and  revel  in 
Arizona  skies,  and  sleep  under  the  stars, 
which  are  so  bright  and  clear  that  they 
cannot  be  very  far  away  from  Arizona. 

The  Colorado  River  is  formed  by  the 
junction  of  the  .Green  and  Grand  in 
south-eastern  Utah.  Its  upper  foaming 
stretch,  running  in  the  Cataract  Canyon, 
is  about  fifty  miles  long,  and  from  thirteen 
to  twenty-seven  hundred  feet  deep.  At 
the  lower  end  of  this  the  Fremont  River 
comes  in  from  the  west.  When  Powell 
came  down  the  Colorado  in  his  memorable 
exploring  expedition,  his  men  were  not 
pleased  with  this  tributary,  and  named  it 
the  Dirty  Devil,  a  name  which  in  local 
parlance  clings  to  it  still.  Here  the  walls 
of  the  canyon  break  away  on  either  side 
giving  access  to  the  Dandy  Crossing. 

Below  this  the  walls  close  in  again  to 
form  the  Glen  Canyon,  one  hundred  and 


TTbe  <3ranfc  Cannon  41 

fifty  miles  long,  but  bordered  by  lower 
and  more  broken  cliffs.  Into  this  segment 
of  the  canyon  the  San  Juan  River  enters 
close  at  the  northern  base  of  Navajo 
Mountain.  The  Colorado  can  be  crossed 
at  three  points  along  the  Glen  Canyon- 
at  Hall's  Crossing,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Escalante,  at  the  Hole-in-the-Rock  Cross- 
ing, near  by,  and  at  the  Crossing  of  the 
Fathers — below  the  entrance  of  the  San 
Juan.  These  crossings  are  now  little 
used  except  by  miners  who  pass  here  to 
reach  placer  beds  along  the  stream. 

At  its  lower  end  the  Glen  Canyon  pierces 
the  cliffs,  the  Colorado  receives  the  Paria 
from  the  west,  and  runs  for  a  mile  or  so 
sedately  in  the  open.  Here  is  Lee's 
Ferry,  where  a  large  boat  carries  across 
the  few  horsemen  and  teams  which  come 
this  way. 

But  the  walls  close  in  again,  and  for 
sixty-five  miles  the  river  is  closely  bor- 


42  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

dered  by  cliffs  from  two  to  three  thousand 
feet  high.  This  is  the  Marble  Canyon. 
At  its  foot  the  Colorado  Chiquito — the 
Little  Colorado — enters  from  the  east. 

From  this  point  until  it  sweeps  out  upon 
the  desert,  more  than  two  hundred  miles 
away,  the  Colorado  runs  at  the  bottom  of 
a  great  valley  from  four  to  twelve  miles 
across,  sunk  from  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
to  a  mile  and  a  quarter  below  the  surface 
of  the  great  plateau,  and  bordered  by  an 
endless  succession  of  vast  rock  amphi- 
theatres, with  gorges  and  canyons  reaching 
a  short  way  back  from  the  valley,  while 
from  its  depths  and  along  its  sides  rise 
graceful,  majestic,  tapering  buttes  in  infi- 
nite variety. 

This  rock-walled  valley  of  amphitheatres 
and  buttes,  wonderful  in  color  beyond  all 
possibility  of  description  is  called  the 
Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  River. 
Here  a  large  tract  on  both  sides  of  the 


<3ranfc  Cannon  43 


river  has  been  sequestered  as  a  National 
Forest  Reserve. 

We  headed  across  the  Great  Plateau  by 
way  of  Bluff  City  on  the  San  Juan  River 
for  the  Dandy  Crossing. 

After  nine  days  of  steady  travel,  across 
arid  mesas,  down  long  and  burning  valleys, 
skirting  the  brinks  of  dizzy  cliffs,  scram- 
bling across  gorges,  and  winding  in  and 
out  among  rocks  and  buttes  and  pinons,  a 
sudden  turn  of  the  trail  brought  us  upon 
the  crest  of  a  low  bluff,  with  the  Colorado 
River  at  our  feet,  sweeping  on  to  the 
south.  This  was  the  Dandy  Crossing, 
and  the  first  sign  of  humanity  since  we 
left  Bluff  City,  seven  days  before,  was  a 
rough  cabin  on  the  far  side  of  the  river, 
here  about  one-eighth  of  a  mile  across. 
We  drew  up  the  caravan,  fired  a  shot  in 
the  air  and  waited. 

Presently  three  black-clad  figures  issued 
from  the  cabin,  filed  solemnly  around  in 


44  ^be  Great  plateau 

front,  and  squatted  in  a  row  upon  the 
ground.  Then  we  both  waited. 

The  black  row  brooded  motionless. 
Presently  we  caught  faintly,  'What  ye 
want?'  "We  want  to  get  across;  send 
over  the  boat. '  'They  ain't  no  boat;  ye 
can't  git  over. ' 

This  was  pleasant.  The  nearest  other 
available  crossing  was  ninety  miles  as 
the  crow  flies,  and  full  thrice  as  far  as  mules 
must  go. 

At  last  we  gathered  amid  the  roar, 
"They  's  a  skiff  somers  upstream,  and 
mebbe  ye  kin  git  'er. ' 

So  we  scrambled  for  three  or  four  miles 
along  the  shelving  rocks  at  the  river's 
brink,  the  cliffs  towering  a  thousand  feet 
over  us,  and  then  stopped,  clinging  as 
best  we  could  to  the  last  shelf  upon 
a  wall  which  rose  sheer  from  the  water. 
But  we  had  sighted  a  hovel  on  the 
other  side,  and  presently  hailed  with 


bC 

c 
o 


ZTbe  OranD  Cannon  45 

joy  a  woman  clad  largely  in  a  sun- 
bonnet. 

"They  is  an  old  boatyar, "  she  shouted 
"but  I  ain't  strong  enough  to  git  'er 
acrost. ' 

Night  was  at  hand,  so  we  turned  back 
to  a  less  precipitous  place  where  our  stock 
could  forage,  made  camp,  and  sat  in 
council. 

The  river  is  big,  it  is  broad,  it  is  muddy, 
it  is  swift,  and  even  in  its  quieter  places 
sullen  and  forbidding.  Great  smooth 
swirls  come  and  go  upon  its  surface;  it 
swishes  viciously  past  the  rocks  and  bushes 
on  the  brink.  And  it  has  a  bad  reputation. 
It  drowns  people  and  it  drowns  stock. 
It  often  claimed,  but  fortunately  lost, 
tribute  from  Major  Powell's  plucky  little 
company  in  1 869.  Nothing  short  of  human 
life  appeased  it  when  Colonel  Stanton  and 
his  men  went  through  the  canyons  twenty 
years  later.  The  folks  who  know  it  best, 


46  Ube  Great  plateau 

the  cattlemen  and  the  miners,  dread  and 
hate  it.      'She's  a  durned,  cussed,   ugly 
devil,  and  ye  'd  best  not  monkey  with  'er, ' 
said   one   of   our   native   councillors   who 
knew. 

But  we  thought  that  we  would  make 
an  attempt  anyhow,  so  one  of  our  number 
mounted  our  veteran  horse  and  plunged 
in.  There  was  splashing  and  turmoil 
in  the  water,  horse  and  man  disappeared, 
and  when,  in  a  few  seconds,  the  rider  was 
dragged  ashore  in  grieved  surprise,  and 
the  horse  scrambled  up  the  bank  a  hundred 
yards  below,  trembling  and  snorting,  we 
were  ready  to  concede  that  the  task  before 
us  was  not  what  in  the  juvenile  vocabu- 
lary would  be  called  a  "cinch. '  Then 
we  had  supper,  and  slept  upon  the  situation 
-and  the  rocks. 

In  the  morning,  one  of  us  crawled 
around  the  cliff  and  along  the  boulders  far 
up  the  bank,  secured  a  stranded  log,  and 


ZTbe  (Bran&  Canvon  47 

floating  and  swimming  with  the  current, 
finally  reached  the  other  side. 

The  boat  was  an  old  ramshackle,  leaky, 
flat-bottomed,  ten-foot  skiff,  with  patched 
and  clumsy  oars,  but  in  small  loads  we 
got  our  saddles  and  packs  across,  and  then, 
after  a  careful  reconnoissance  of  the  banks 
on  both  sides  for  a  safe  entering-place 
and  landing,  we  tackled  the  stock. 

None  of  our  animals  had  been  tried  in 
deep  and  rapid  streams.  Indeed,  neither 
they  nor  our  Indian,  both  children  of  the 
desert,  had  ever  before  seen  so  much 
water.  It  was  evident  from  our  first 
attempt  that  if  we  pushed  them  off  into 
deep  water  to  take  their  chances,  the 
animals  would  either  scramble  back  again 
or  drown.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to 
tow  them  over,  one  by  one.  This  would 
have  been  a  more  agreeable  undertaking 
if  the  oars  had  been  less  nondescript  in 
form  and  less  fragile,  if  the  boat  had 


48  tTbe  (Breat  plateau 

leaked  in  fewer  places  and  in  less  aban- 
doned fashion,  and  if  she  had  n't  threat- 
ened to  fall  to  pieces  every  time  the 
oarsman  pulled  unequally  upon  the  sides. 

It  would  make  a  long  list  if  one  were  to 
set  down  all  the  surprising  things  which 
a  horse  or  a  mule  will  undertake  to  do 
when,  with  a  rope  around  his  neck,  held 
in  the  boat  a  rod  or  so  off  shore,  he  is 
suddenly  pushed  off  a  steep  bank  into  deep 
water.  He  tries  to  go  to  the  bottom  first, 
but  he  is  too  buoyant  for  success  at  that ; 
then  he  tries  to  get  back  to  the  bank,  but 
the  rope  pulling  from  the  boat  and  shouting 
men  ashore  brandishing  clubs  discourage 
that.  He  surges  right  and  left,  he  snorts, 
he  splashes,  he  groans,  and  when  at 
length  he  realises  that  he  can't  possibly 
get  ashore  again,  he  concentrates  all  his 
hitherto  diverse  purposes  into  a  fixed 
intention  to  get  aboard  the  boat. 

He  has  now  been  hauled  close  astern, 


TTbe  <3ran&  Cannon  49 

and  has  lost  all  notion  of  the  shore.  The 
oarsman  meanwhile  is  pulling  madly 
toward  the  other  bank,  the  whole  circus 
sweeping  every  second  down  the  stream. 
With  every  lurch  upon  the  rope  the  joints 
in  the  crazy  craft  open,  and  the  Colorado 
River  seems  determined  to  get  aboard 
along  with  the  horse.  Floundering  up 
and  down  in  the  struggle  to  raise  his 
fore  feet  over  the  stern,  his  knees  thump 
against  the  outside  of  the  boat.  He  swims 
first  around  one  side,  then  around  the 
other,  as  far  as  the  short  rope  will  let  him 
go.  He  rolls  on  his  side  as  a  vicious 
whirl  in  the  water  catches  him,  and  seems 
to  lose  his  bearings.  His  eyes  bulge,  his 
breath  grows  short,  he  groans  rather  than 
snorts,  and  at  last,  when  the  man  sitting 
astern  with  the  rope  raises  his  nose  over 
the  thwart,  with  a  great  sigh  he  gives 
up  and  swims  along  behind,  blowing 
and  puffing  and  with  strained  eyes,  but 


50  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

quietly  and  smoothly.  The  fight  is 
over. 

In  this  lull  in  the  panic  we  secure  evi- 
dent recognition  of  words  of  cheer  and 
encouragement  with  which,  even  in  mid- 
stream, we  strive  to  re-establish  claims 
to  friendliness  and  good-will  so  rudely 
strained  by  the  deep  damnation  of  that 
pushing  off. 

Presently  the  boat  begins  to  slew 
around.  The  oarsman  cannot  keep  her 
on  the  course  headed  for  a  rocky  point 
far  down  the  stream  upon  which  and 
nowhere  else  the  landing  must  be  made, 
because  of  quicksand  at  every  other 
place.  It  is  evident  in  an  instant  that 
the  beast  has  caught  sight  of  the  far 
shore,  and  regardless  of  the  boat,  is  head- 
ing for  it.  So  the  rope  is  payed  out  and 
let  go,  and  he  bears  away  gallantly  for  the 
point. 

It  was   fortunate   that   the  first  horse 


Ube  <3ranfc  Cannon  51 

which  we  piloted  thus  across  let  us  drag  him 
nearly  all  the  way,  because  we  secured 
for  him  the  proper  landing,  where  he  and 
the  others,  as  one  by  one  they  joined  him, 
stood  as  landmarks  for  those  which  were 
to  follow.  We  had  a  distinct  and  varie- 
gated campaign  with  each  animal,  but  the 
lines  of  the  story  fall  much  the  same  in 
all.  At  last  we  got  them  safely  over, 
and  gratefully  returned  in  one  piece  the 
gallant  craft  which  saved  the  day.  We 
had  lost  a  few  illusions  about  the  ease 
of  primitive  travel  on  the  frontier,  but 
we  had  gained  a  distinct  preference 
for  bridges,  and  we  had  conquered  the 
Colorado. 

Then  we  head  away  westward  again  up 
the  nearly  dry,  rough  wash  of  the  Crescent 
Creek  or  Lost  Gulch,  and  are  soon  out 
upon  the  plateau  close  to  the  eastern 
slope  of  the  Henry  Mountains.  We  skirt 
the  northern  spurs  of  the  Henrys,  entering 


52  TTbe  (Breat  plateau 

the  midr caches  of  the  Dirty  Devil  Valley 
among  outlying  Mormon  settlements. 

Now,  day  after  day,  the  way  leads  west 
and  south  through  great  gashes  in  the  ledges 
of  lofty  plateaus,  past  cliff-girt  mountain 
vales,  up  the  long  stretches  of  the  Sevier,  a 
river  whose  waters  never  reach  the  sea.  At 
last  we  climb  the  height  which  divides 
the  waterways  leading  back  to  the  salt- 
lake  basins  of  Utah  from  the  summit 
sources  of  the  Kanab  and  the  Virgen, 
children  of  the  great  Colorado. 

As  we  cross  the  divide  we  are  between 
two  great  tables  which  rise  a  thousand 
feet  or  more  above  us  to  the  right  and 
left.  These  are  the  Pansagunt  and  the 
Markagunt  plateaus,  standing  nine  and 
ten  thousand  feet  above  the  sea. 

The  Kanab  Creek  has  cut  a  rough 
winding  gorge  down  through  the  cliffs  and 
terraces  which  mark  the  descent  from 
the  high  plateaus  southward  to  the  great 


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ZTbe  (BranD  Cannon  53 

bench  of  the  Colorado.  In  this  we  clamber 
down  the  marvellous  series  of  terraces 
sloping  upward  to  their  edges,  clearing 
at  a  leap  ledges  which  it  took  a  thousand 
or  perhaps  a  hundred  thousand  years  to 
build,  and  as  many  more,  mayhap,  to 
wash  away  again.  How  we  and  our 
mules  flaunted  our  heels  in  the  face  of 
Time  that  day! 

If  we  were  geologists,  we  should  check 
the  ledges  off  as  we  descend- -Eocene, 
Cretaceous,  Jurassic,  Triassic,  and  out 
upon  the  Permian.  But  being  just  com- 
mon folks,  they  may  be  for  us  the  Pink 
Cliffs,  White  Cliffs,  Vermilion  Cliffs,  Brown 
Cliffs.  I  will  not  try  to  describe  their 
majesty,  nor  the  weird  forms  and  the 
gorgeous  colours  with  which  in  the  lower 
series  they  are  glorified.  At  last  we  come 
down  upon  the  lowest  of  the  terraces,  the 
Vermilion  Cliffs  sweeping  away  right  and 
left,  and  into  the  little  hamlet  of  Kanab, 


54  ftbe  (Brcat  plateau 

the  last  Mormon  outpost  in  southern 
Utah,  close  upon  the  northern  line  of 
Arizona. 

The  Grand  and  Marble  Canyons  cut 
the  north-western  corner  of  Arizona  com- 
pletely off  from  the  rest  of  the  Territory. 
Except  by  Lee's  Ferry,  and  the  long,  hot 
road  which  leads  to  it,  or  by  a  far  western 
route,  this  corner  is  inaccessible  from  the 
south.  It  looks  small  enough  upon 
the  map,  but  it  is  rather  larger  than  the 
State  of  Connecticut,  and  save  for  a  few 
scattered  cattle-shacks,  has  no  human 
habitation. 

Over  the  middle  and  western  portions 
of  this  barren  northern  Colorado  bench, 
where  in  five  thousand  square  miles  there 
may  be  a  dozen  springs  and  fickle  water- 
pockets,  bands  of  wild  horses  roam, 
defying  pursuit,  worrying  more  docile 
stock,  and  eating  grass  and  drinking 
water  which  are  none  too  plenty  for 


TTbe  Grant)  Cannon  55 

cattle  and  for  better  mannered  horses.  But 
a  fine  show  these  splendid  creatures  make 
of  it  when,  from  ten  to  fifty  in  a  bunch, 
they  catch  sight  of  an  outfit  like  ours 
and  line  out  for  a  run. 

For  the  next  two  weeks  we  wander  over 
this  stretch  of  the  plateau  which  lies 
along  the  northern  side  of  the  Grand 
Canyon,  among  extinct  volcanoes,  across 
sinister  lava  flows,  and  along  dry  shallow 
water  courses,  which  once  were  tributary 
to  the  Colorado  River,  while  it  too  was  a 
broad  leisurely  stream  before  the  carving 
of  the  great  inner  gorge. 

Lying  along  the  whole  eastern  side  of 
this  district  and  forming  a  large  part  of 
the  most  imposing  segment  of  the  northern 
wall  of  the  Grand  Canyon  and  the  western 
wall  of  the  Marble  Canyon  esplanade,  is 
the  Kaibab  Plateau,  or  Old  Buckskin,  as 
hereabouts  it  is  familiarly  called.  It  is 
the  Kaibab  which  looms  up  before  the 


56  Ube  Great  plateau 

tourist  on  the  southern  side  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  as  he  stands  upon  the  brink  at 
El  Tovar  or  the  Grand  View  Hotel.  It  is 
from  seven  to  nine  thousand  feet  above 
sea  level,  stretches  a  hundred  miles  north 
and  south,  and  at  its  widest  is  somewhat 
more  than  thirty  miles  across. 

We  now  turn  to  the  great  Kaibab. 
Everybody  had  told  us  that  it  is  a  para- 
dise up  there  in  the  forest,  and  we  found 
it  true.  There  one  may  wander  for  days 
in  an  open  forest  of  noble  pines ;  or  along 
exquisite  glades,  green-bottomed,  where 
the  quaking  aspen  cheers  the  eye,  and 
edged  with  the  delicate  spires  of  spruce 
and  fir.  Bright  flowers  bloom  in  long 
forest-sequestered  parks.  One  may  even 
hear  water  gurgle  here  and  there  among 
the  rocks,  a  sound  not  very  common  in 
Arizona.  Deer  are  plenty  and  very  tame. 
We  chased  them  among  the  trees  as  one 
might  runaway  cows.  But  as  we  were  not 


TTbe  <3ranfc  Ganpon  57 

out  to  kill  things  we  left  them  mostly  to 
their  own  devices. 

However  pleasant  it  may  be,  after  the 
hot  weeks  of  travel  in  the  open,  to  loiter 
under  the  pines  and  among  the  glades 
in  the  heart  of  the  Kaibab,  one  cannot 
long  resist  those  hazy  glimpses  caught 
here  and  there  between  the  trees  into  far 
blue  depths  upon  which  shadowy  outlines 
of  temples  and  minarets,  and  nameless 
dreamy  masses  in  soft  rich  colours,  float 
and  gleam.  However  deep  in  the  forest 
or  cosy  beside  the  camp  fire  at  the  edge 
of  one  of  those  matchless  glades,  the  spell 
of  the  great  abyss  hovers  about  one  and 
lures  him  to  its  side. 

We  ride  for  a  day  and  crawl  over  upon 
a  great  peninsula  of  rock — Powell's  Plateau, 
they  name  it — which  looms  above  the 
heart  of  this  under- world,  and  revel  in 
the  vision.  We  ride  and  camp  and  ride 
again  out  and  out  for  miles  to  the  last 


58  Ube  Great  plateau 

rock  pillar  which  stands  poised  on  Point 
Sublime,  and  linger  hour  after  hour  in  the 
thrall  of  a  waking  dream. 

Then  away  we  go  again — for  it  makes 
one  restless,  this  mighty  thing  of  trans- 
cendant  beauty — and  after  many  miles 
reach  a  towering  promontory  around 
which  the  river  makes  a  great  curve  as  it 
emerges  from  the  Marble  Canyon  and 
sweeps  into  the  vast  chambered  space 
below.  This  is  the  vantage-ground,  lo- 
cally known  as  Greenland  Point,  infre- 
quently visited  by  parties  of  the  nearest 
Mormon  villagers  for  a  view  of  the  Grand 
Canyon.  Two  projecting  cliffs  upon  this 
point,  known  to  the  geologists  as  Cape 
Royal  and  Cape  Final,  loom  up  across 
the  Canyon  from  Grand  view. 

When  Major  Powell  and  his  men  came 
floating  down  the  river  they  seemed  a 
little  remorseful  for  the  mood  in  which 
the  Dirty  Devil  had  been  named,  and  as 


V. 

tf 


I 


f 

y 

IT 


Battlements  of  the  Canyon's  Rim. 
As  seen  from  the  Colorado  River. 


(Branb  Canpon  59 


they  reached  the  mouth  of  a  side  canyon 
a  few  miles  below  our  Greenland  Point, 
whence  issues  a  sparkling  brook,  they 
were  inspired  to  call  it  the  Bright  Angel. 
The  new  hotel,  El  Tovar,  at  the  terminus 
of  the  railroad,  looks  up  this  winding 
gorge  from  the  southern  rim  of  the  Grand 
Canyon,  a  dozen  miles  away. 

It  was  at  a  little  spring  close  under 
the  edge  of  the  summit  ledges  in  which 
this  happily  christened  streamlet  finds  its 
source  that  we  lingered  longest  in  camp, 
loath  to  relinguish  the  shelter  of  the  noble 
forest  and  lose  the  glimpses  of  wonderland 
down  through  the  corridor  of  cliffs  and 
towers  which  the  Bright  Angel  has  fash- 
ioned in  its  mad  rush  to  the  bosom  of  the 
Colorado. 

But  there  are  hundreds  of  hot  miles 
between  us  and  home,  and  so  at  last, 
after  some  days  of  forest  wandering, 
we  turn  our  faces  toward  the  eastern 


60  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

facade  of  the  Kaibab,  heading  for  Lee's 
Ferry. 

Here  we  secure  a  small  boat  and  work 
our  way  toilsomely  up  into  the  lower 
boxes  of  the  Glen  Canyon,  trying  to 
realise  as  we  drift  back  again,  the  toils 
and  dangers  and  recompenses  of  those 
who  have  floated  through  all  the  long 
stretches  of  the  canyons — Powell  and 
Stan  ton  with  their  parties,  the  story  of 
whose  explorations  has  been  told  in  most 
complete  and  entertaining  fashion  by 
Dellenbaugh,  himself  one  of  the  bold 
adventurers,  in  his  Romance  of  the  Colo- 
rado River. 

From  the  ferry  crossing  one  looks  down 
upon  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Marble 
Canyon,  its  walls  steadily  rising  until  they 
close  in  perspective  over  gloomy  depths. 

It  is  a  thirsty  ride  of  seventy -five  miles 
along  the  Echo  Cliffs  from  Lee's  Ferry 
to  water  at  the  trading-post  at  Willow 


ZTbe  (Branfc  Cannon  61 

Springs,  whence  the  way  leads  on  to  the 
Mormon  city  of  Tuba,  now  a  Navajo 
agency,  and  to  the  Pueblo  Indian  ranches 
in  the  valley  of  the  Moencopie. 

I  have  not  woven  into  my  wayside 
narrative  the  human  interests  passing 
in  and  out  through  the  story  of  the  scarred, 
insistent  earth  which  so  inevitably  domi- 
nated our  waking  hours.  But  we  stopped 
beside  forlorn  hovels,  whose  Mormon 
inmates  had  memories  clear  enough  of 
better  times  in  other  lands,  and  hopes 
pathetic  and  dim  of  a  brighter  day  for 
the  Chosen.  Cattle-men,  weeks  from  the 
sight  of  other  faces,  were  glad  to  leave 
their  lonesome  cabins  among  the  pines 
and  ride  for  miles  beside  us  to  hear  our 
story  and  to  tell  their  own.  Dusky 
forms,  mostly  of  Pah  Utes  and  Navajos, 
would  dash  out  upon  us  or  suddenly 
materialise  at  our  camp  fires  in  the  re- 
motest places,  and  in  mutual  stares  and 


62  ttbe  Great  plateau 

smokes  and  pantomine  we  always  won 
our  way  to  good  fellowship  and  confidence. 

From  Tuba  the  way  is  not  far  to  the 
eastern  fringe  of  the  Coconino  Forest, 
and  across  the  uplands  to  the  range  of  the 
tourist  and  the  hotels  at  the  Grand 
Canyon,  whence  we  were  lured  at  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter  by  glimpses  of 
the  land  beyond. 

The  Cataract,  the  Glen,  and  the  Marble 
Canyons,  and  that  portion  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  which  lies  below  Powell's  Plateau, 
are  gorges  of  overpowering  grandeur,  but 
they  are  perfectly  comprehensible.  When 
one  has  won  his  way  along  and  across  them, 
and  now  in  sun  and  now  in  shadow  has 
studied  their  sombre  walls,  he  can  easily 
enough  describe  them  and  recall  better- 
known  canyons  and  gorges  which  serve 
fairly  well  by  comparison  to  illustrate 
their  extent  and  majesty.  But  face  to 
face  with  this  other,  comparisons  are 


Ube  6ranfc  Cannon  63 

futile,  and  figures  and  estimates  seem 
impertinent.  Each  change  of  season,  each 
new  day,  and  every  passing  hour  reveals 
new  elements  of  grandeur  in  the  cliffs, 
fresh  phases  of  transcendent  beauty  in 
their  colours. 

The  great  Canyon  is  shy  of  the  camera, 
and  the  marvellous  blue  haze,  now  lumi- 
nous, now  faint,  now  shot  with  purple 
as  the  light  falls  red  upon  it  at  sunset, 
is  always  there  holding  its  reserve  in- 
violate. Single  cliffs  and  towers  of  rare 
strength  and  beauty  may  be  secured 
upon  your  films,  but  the  Canyon  never. 

The  first  white  men  to  look  upon  the 
Grand  Canyon  were  some  old  Spaniards, 
who  went  out  from  the  Moqui  villages  in 
1541.  A  few  of  them  scrambled  down 
the  cliffs  a  little  way  and  took  a  world 
of  satisfaction,  when  they  got  back,  in 
pointing  out  to  their  wiser  comrades  who 
had  staid  above,  some  pinnacles  of  rock 


64  tTbe  (Breat  plateau 

partway  down  apparently  as  large  as  a 
man,  but  which  they  triumphantly  de- 
clared were  bigger  than  the  great  tower 
of  Seville. 

Major  Powell,  who  knew  the  Colorado 
well,  says  impressive  things,  in  very 
charming  fashion,  about  the  Grand  Canyon. 
But  he  finds  the  task  perilously  exacting, 
and  at  Jast,  yielding  to  the  frenzy  of 
comparison,  plucks  up  Mount  Washington 
by  the  roots  to  the  level  of  the  sea,  and 
drops  it  head  first  into  the  abyss,  calling 
you  to  witness  that  the  waters  still  flow 
between  the  walls.  Anon  the  Blue  Ridge 
is  plucked  up  and  even  hurled  into  the 
canyon;  but  there  is  room  aplenty  still. 

Charles  Dudley  Warner,  wearying  of 
description,  stows  away  the  Yosemite  in 
an  inconspicuous  side  gorge,  and  defies 
you  to  find  it.  Then  he  summons  dreams 
of  the  Orient,  calls  Babylon  back  across 
the  years,  fixes  his  eyes  upon  a  far,  aerial 


Upper  Ledges  of  the  Canyon  Wall. 
On  the  Grandview  Trail. 


Ube  (BranS  Cannon  65 

heaven  which  fades  at  last  into  visions 
of  the  New  Jerusalem,  and  so,  altogether, 
comes  off  with  flying  colours  from  his 
skilful,  lusty  tilt  with  the  impossible. 

A  wise  and  sympathetic,  as  well  as 
learned  description  of  the  Grand  Canyon 
and  its  adjacent  country  is  that  of  Captain 
Button,  unfortunately  buried  for  most 
readers  in  a  bulky  report. --Vol.  II. — of 
the  United  States  Geological  Survey. 

After  all,  one  may  be  glad  if  he  can  win 
the  conviction  that  in  a  world  so  strenuous 
with  obvious  duties  and  conscientious 
impulses,  no  man  has  got  to  describe  the 
Grand  Canyon. 

But  if  one  would  really  know  it  he  must 
not  hasten  away.  Many  interesting  jour- 
neys along  its  borders,  afoot  and  ahorse, 
are  feasable  from  the  hotels,  especially 
from  Grand  View.  One  may  ride  from 
Grand  View  north-eastward  for  sixteen 
miles  among  the  pinons  of  the  Coconino 


66  Ube  (Branfc  Cannon 

Basin  and  peer  into  the  shivery  depths 
of  the  narrow  gorge  through  which  the 
Little  Colorado  sinks  into  the  arms  of 
its  big  brother  from  the  scorching  sands 
of  the  Painted  Desert. 

One  may  visit  little  groups  of  cliff  houses 
in  the  gullies  which  lead  from  the  basin 
up  into  the  northern  fringes  of  the  forest 
or  along  the  summit  ledges  of  the  great 
valley.  One  can  grope  his  way  into  lime- 
stone caves  far  down  the  cliffs,  or  may 
wander  for  miles  along  the  brink  of  the 
canyon,  winding  in  and  out  to  head  the 
vast  amphitheatres  which  face  the  abyss, 
picking  up  old  arrow-heads  and  frag- 
ments of  archaic  pottery. 

A  ride  of  some  sixty  miles  south-westward 
will  bring  one  to  the  bottom  of  the  canyon 
of  Cataract  Creek,  where  a  dwindling 
relic  of  the  Havasupai  Indians  awaits 
extinction  in  poor  wickiyups  among  their 
meagre  corn-fields  and  melon-patches. 


TTbe  (Branfc  Canyon  67 

It  is  not  easy,  where  every  outlook  is 
sublime,  to  select  a  single  point  upon  the 
canyon's  brink  of  which  one  can  say,  this 
is,  after  all,  the  best. 

The  outlook  from  El  Tovar  or  from 
the  points  near  by  is  impressive,  almost 
overpowering,  because  one  gets  here  his 
first  glimpse  which  is  straight  down  into 
the  vast  abyss. 

One  of  the  most  comprehensive  views 
is  a  long,  high  spur  on  the  south  side, 
some  miles  below  the  railway  terminus 
and  accessible  from  Bass's  camp.  This 
looms  far  out  over  the  deeps  between 
two  mighty  gulfs  and  commands  a  stretch 
of  many  miles  of  the  Canyon  on  either 
side. 

The  outlook  from  Grand  View  is,  how- 
ever, in  many  respects  the  most  alluring 
of  all  since  it  commands  from  the  highest 
point  upon  the  southern  rim,  not  only  the 
vast  amphitheatre  at  the  entrance  of 


68  Ube  Great  plateau 

the  Little  Colorado,  but  glimpses  of  the 
Painted  Desert,  the  Marble  Plateau,  Echo 
Cliffs,  and  the  exquisite  dome  of  Navajo 
Mountain,  upon  the  far  northern  horizon. 

Do  not  go  before  you  have  seen  the 
great  valley  filled  to  the  brim  with  seething 
billows  of  cloud,  and  watched  their  fading 
under  the  touch  of  the  early  sun.  You 
must  see  a  shower  march  across  the  vast 
spaces  below,  leaving  trails  of  heightened 
colour  upon  the  streaming  faces  of  the 
cliffs.  From  above  you  should  see  the 
night  close  in,  and  strain  the  eyes  to  catch 
the  outline  of  familiar  forms  grown  faint 
and  far  and  strange.  And  when  the 
moonlight  falls  full  into  the  depths,  say 
if  you  can  that  down  there  it  is  still  a 
part  of  the  earth  you  know. 

You  should  scramble  down  the  trails 
and  learn  that  it  is  a  real  river  foaming 
and  tossing  over  the  rocks.  But  you  will 
not  win  your  way  to  the  inmost  spirit  of 


u 

u 


S-i 

0> 


C 
rt 


OJ 


Ube  (Branfc  Cannon  69 

the  place  unless  you  spend  a  night  alone 
down  in  those  awesome  chambers — as 
far  out  of  the  world  as  you  can  get,  it 
seems,  and  still  hold  the  link  intact. 

The  going  out  of  the  day  from  your 
seclusion  and  the  splendour  of  the  world's 
night  far  above  you,  the  unearthly  sweep 
of  the  moonlight  across  the  faces  of  the 
awful  cliffs  which  hem  you  in,  and  the 
coming  of  the  morning,  ushered  in  upon 
your  solitude  in  mysterious  fashion  from 
some  invisible  source — these  and  the  mem- 
ory of  a  hundred  weird  happenings  of 
the  night,  which  I  may  not  linger  to  set 
down,  will  seal  the  enchantment  when, 
again  stretched  in  the  friendly  shade  of 
some  gnarled  old  cedar  close  upon  the 
brink,  you  let  the  hours  slip  by  in  dreamy 
visions  which  each  moment  weaves  afresh 
out  of  the  mass  and  colour  of  cliff  and 
pinnacle  and  gorge  and  their  veil  of 
ethereal  blue. 


70  Ube  (Breat  JMateau 

So  at  last  we  have  learned  where  the 
old  Colorado  comes  from,  and  have  seen 
it  sweeping  through  dwindling  gorges 
out  to  the  desert  of  the  far  South-west. 
The  mystery  of  the  country  beyond  the 
river  has  been  merged  in  pictures  of  a 
summer  holiday.  We  know  that  those 
tiny  uplifts  over  there  upon  the  farther 
brink  are  not  the  puny  twiglets  which 
they  seem,  but  gigantic  pines,  through 
whose  swaying  tops  the  wind  moans  and 
sings.  We  could  even  prove,  '  an  we 
would,"  out  of  its  miles  of  splendid  cliffs, 
that  the  Grand  Canyon  is,  indeed,  the 
masterpiece  of  world  sculpture.  But  when 
the  last  is  said,  the  spirit,  as  at  the  first, 
is  swayed  most  of  all  by  its  elusive,  un- 
earthly beauty.  Perhaps  Mr.  Warner, 
after  all,  was  wise  to  drop  halting  phrases 
and  turn  to  visions  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 

Our  way  homeward  leads  past  the 
Hopi  villages,  where  we  linger  through 


Ube  Oranfc  Cannon  71 

the  weird  ceremonial  of  the  snake-dance 
at  Walpi.  Thence  the  hot  trails  lead  us 
for  eight  days  over  the  wide  stretches 
of  the  Navajo  reservation,  around  the 
western  spur  of  the  Carriso  Mountains, 
across  the  San  Juan  River,  along  the 
western  front  of  the  Mesa  Verde,  in  whose 
recesses  the  cliff-dwellings  are  concealed. 

And  so  we  straggle  into  the  ranch. 
There  still  are  ten  of  us,  but  it  is  in  part 
another  ten.  For  of  the  six  sturdy, 
willing  beasts  which  started  on  the  way, 
only  two  have  weathered  the  privations 
and  hardships  of  the  thirteen  hundred 
toilsome  miles  which  make  up  the  record 
of  our  summer  wandering. 

The  hardships  of  the  way  are  soon 
forgotten,  but  in  the  lulls  of  busy  life  the 
memory  is  fain  to  conjure  back  the  spell 
of  those  serene  deeps,  which  woven  once, 
nor  time  nor  space  shall  ever  break. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  LITTLE  STORY  OF  WORLD-MAKING 

IF  one  lingers    for  a  while  beside    the 
stream  of  tourist  travel  which  surges 
in  to  the  Grand  Canyon  at  El  Tovar 
stares,  exclaims,  gasps,  squeaks,  chatters, 
even    weeps    sometimes,    and    then    slips 
back  whence  it  came,  he  will  hear  first 
and    last    a    great    deal    about    how    the 
Canyon  "happened.' 

One  may  read  all  about  it  and  more 
too,  in  the  descriptions  of  passing  news- 
paper correspondents  diverted  for  a  day 
from  the  main  line  of  the  Santa  Fe  at 
Williams.  These  are,  however,  not  in- 
frequently so  bathed  in  an  atmosphere  of 
personal  impression  and  so  charged  with 

more  or  less  lurid  comparisons  that  signi- 

72 


73 


ficant  details  are  lost.  Many  learned  trea- 
tises on  the  geology  of  the  Canyon  are 
quite  accessible.  But  the  temptation  is 
strong  to  sum  up  the  opinions  of  the  ex- 
perts in  simple  fashion  for  the  visitor  who 
seeks  the  story  for  itself  but  likes  his 
science  tempered  to  the  spirit  of  his 
holiday. 

If  I  venture  here  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
Canyon's  making  in  simple  impersonal 
fashion  I  must  assume  that  the  reader 
has  already  wandered  to  and  fro  at  leisure 
upon  the  ;'rim,  '  that  we  have  made  our 
way  down  the  colossal  terraces  by  one  of 
the  well  made  trails,  preferably  at  Grand 
View,  and  have  come  at  last  to  the  camping 
place  upon  a  great  sand  bar  beside  the 
river.  We  dispose  of  our  frugal  meal  as 
the  night  creeps  in  upon  the  vast  abyss 
and  its  chambered  recesses.  We  have 
made  a  fire  of  river  driftwood,  and  here, 
if  ever,  the  grim  walls  looming  far  up  on 


74  TTbe  <3teat  plateau 

either  side,  a  clear-cut  strip  of  starry  sky 
between,  and  the  swirl  and  roar  of  the 
river  close  at  hand,  is  the  time  and  place 
for  a  story. 

There  are  so  many  kinds  of  story  which 
a  camp-fire  invites  that  one  might  hesitate 
in  choice.  But  the  spirit  of  the  situation 
and  the  hour  lead  most  directly  to  a 
sober  tale  of  world-making  which  geolo- 
gists have  read  out  of  the  stone  story- 
book opened  wider  in  this  land  of  the 
great  plateaus  than  almost  anywhere 
else  on  earth. 

I  have  upon  my  writing-table,  holding 
down  a  pile  of  unruly  papers,  the  oldest 
relic  of  America  which  human  eyes  have 
ever  rested  on.  It  is  a  rough  fragment 
of  rock  which  I  broke  off  from  a  long, 
low  granite  ridge,  a  part  of  which  is 
now  called  the  Laurentian  Hills  in 
Canada — the  first  land  to  emerge  from 
that  universal,  shoreless  sea  which 


75 


once  swept  unhindered  round  the 
earth. 

After  the  appearance  of  my  paper- 
weight —  the  avatar  of  the  North  American 
Continent  —  some  scattering  rock  islets 
and  ridges  got  their  heads  also  into  the 
sunlight  here  and  there,  along  the  line 
of  the  Appalachian  chain,  among  the  tips 
of  the  Rockies,  and  over  the  central  and 
northern  regions  of  the  future  great 
republic. 

Then  these  rock  islands,  and  others 
which  the  throes  of  the  uneasy  earth  sent 
up  to  join  them,  and  the  shallow  bottoms 
here  and  there,  were  pounded  through 
ages  by  resistless  seas,  and  powdered  and 
weathered  into  boulder,  pebble,  sand,  and 
silt.  This  wreckage  filled  in  the  borders 
of  the  land,  and  slowly  built  up,  layer  by 
layer,  the  bottoms  of  the  interinsular 
seas.  The  layered  ruin  of  the  earlier  earth 
was  then  baked  by  plu  tonic  fires  into  new 


76  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

rock,  and  again  became  the  sport  of  the 
elements,  and  took  new  forms  and  places 
in  the  earth's  foundation. 

And  so,  after  never  mind  how  many 
millions  of  years,  the  continent  of  North 
America  grew  into  some  semblance  of  its 
present  form.  But  for  a  long  time  the 
South  Atlantic  seaboard  was  under  water; 
Florida  was  not;  and  what  now  we  call 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  sent  a  deep  bay 
up  the  Mississippi  half-way  to  the  Great 
Lakes;  while  a  vast  inland  sea,  the  Medi- 
terranean of  early  America,  stretched 
north-westward  from  the  Gulf  across  the 
Rocky  Mountain  country,  over  the  region 
of  our  great  plateau,  and  far  on  toward 
the  Arctic  Ocean. 

Just  here  the  sequence  of  events  grows 
dim  as  centuries  file  along.  At  any  rate 
the  great  inland  sea  was  gradually  filled 
by  the  wash  from  its  shores  and  by  the 
water-borne  wreckage  of  the  hills  in  the 


Worl^/IDafetng  77 

back  country.  Then  it  lost  its  connec- 
tion with  the  sea,  and  became  a  vast  fresh- 
water lake,  or  chain  of  lakes,  with  rather 
unstable  bottoms,  which  rose  and  sank 
as  the  earth's  crust  bent  and  wrinkled. 
The  shores  and  depths  of  this  new  lake 
were  haunted  by  strange  living  crea- 
tures. 

Finally  the  whole  basin  got  filled  up  and 
dry,  except  for  the  water  pouring  down 
out  of  the  northern  hills.  Thus  a  great 
new  drainage  area  was  formed,  which 
headed  far  in  the  crumpled  mountains  to 
the  north,  and  stretched  off  south-west- 
ward toward  a  mighty  arm  of  the  sea,  of 
which  the  Gulf  of  California  is  the  dwin- 
dling relic.  This  drainage  area  became 
in  time  the  plateau  country,  and  the  new 
watercourse,  the  Colorado  River,  so  nois- 
ily in  evidence  beside  our  camp,  forswore 
its  inherited  fealty  to  the  Atlantic,  long 
maintained  through  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 


78  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

and  henceforth  paid  loyal  tribute  to  the 
Pacific. 

Please  remember  that  I  am  just  telling 
the  story  as  I  have  gleaned  it  from  the 
students  of  the  rocks  in  book  and  lecture 
and  in  far-off  camps  among  the  hills. 
So  if  a  million  years  or  so  should  slip 
away  unheeded  in  my  tale,  or  if  the 
shores  of  nameless,  vanished  seas  should 
in  my  memory  break  in  wider  beach-lines 
or  a  little  farther  inland  than  in  fact 
they  did,  I  claim  the  license  of  way -side 
narrative. 

It  is  tiresome  to  try  to  conceive  of  the 
long  reaches  of  time  during  which  this 
great  inland  sea  was  filling  up,  and  it  is 
fortunate  that  the  geologists  who  deal  in 
such  lordly,  lavish  fashion  with  the  years, 
handling  them  in  parcels  of  a  few  millions 
or  a  hundred  millions  or  so,  finally  lump 
them  together  under  ages — Carbonifer- 
ous, Permian,  Triassic,  Jurassic,  Creta- 


79 


ceous,  etc.,  names  which  are  not  insist- 
ent in  the  suggestion  that  they  were,  after 
all,  made  up  of  hours  and  minutes,  which 
only  one  by  one  have  slipped  away. 

But  if  you  go  out  into  the  plateau  coun- 
try five  hundred  miles  from  any  ocean  you 
will  not  doubt  this  inland  sea.  For  you 
may  ride  for  hours  along  shaly  rock  escarp- 
ments on  which  the  ripples  of  the  ancient 
shores  are  as  plain  and  plenty  as  ever 
you  saw  them  on  the  Jersey  coast.  You 
can  pick  up  shells  too,  which  at  least  sug- 
gest clams,  stone  though  they  be  to-day. 

In  the  northern  part  of  the  plateau  coun- 
try, now  cut  off  from  the  rest  by  the 
Uintah  Mountains,  the  bones  of  monkeys 
and  crocodiles,  of  birds  with  teeth  and 
three-toed  horses,  of  sea-serpents  —  honour 
bright,  I  appeal  to  Marsh  and  to  Osborn  — 
and  of  a  motley  lot  of  named  and  name- 
less uncouth,  ludicrous  beasts,  are  piled 
pell-mell  together  in  the  washes,  or  half 


8o  Ube  Great  plateau 

buried  in  banks  and  cliffs  and  weathered 
buttes  which  once  were  the  shores  and 
bottoms  of  our  slowly  shoaling  inland  sea. 
It  is  a  pleasant  memory  which  lingers 
with  the  writer,  of  an  undergraduate 
summer  spent  in  this  region  under  the 
tutelage  of  Professor  Marsh,  who  was  so 
wise  in  the  lore  of  these  crumbling  hills. 
Most  vivid  of  all,  perhaps,  is  the  recol- 
lection of  a  long,  hot  week  whose  day- 
light hours  were  spent  alone  astride  the 
shelving  edge  of  a  low  weathered  butte, 
with  hammer  and  stone-chisel,  pecking 
away  the  rock  around  the  fossil  head 
of  a  preposterous  beast,  something  like 
a  crocodile,  I  fancied,  which  once  had 
floundered  about  in  that  old  inland  sea. 
Every  day,  as  soon  as  the  click  of  the 
chisel  began,  three  huge  grey  wolves 
came  peering  over  the  edge  of  the  bluff 
a  hundred  feet  or  so  above  me,  and 
here  they  stood,  alert,  but  silent,  all 


The  Wily  Coyote. 


81 


through  the  hot  day.  A  hallo  and  a 
sudden  wave  of  the  hand  would  send 
them  scampering  off,  but  presently  they 
were  there  again,  attentive  as  ever  to 
the  strange  thing  below.  It  was  a  far 
cry  back  from  my  contemporaries  upon 
the  bluff,  who  seemed  to  have  very 
little  business  of  their  own  on  hand,  to 
the  old  inhabitant  at  my  feet  ;  and  though 
we  had  n't  much  in  common,  we  all 
got  on  very  well  together,  and  parted 
friends. 

But  I  have  lingered  behind  my  story, 
for  we  have  seen  the  old  inland  sea  filled 
up,  and  a  new  great  river,  which  will 
some  day  be  the  Colorado,  sweeping  down 
from  the  northern  regions  on  its  way  to 
the  Pacific.  This  stream  bore  great  floods 
of  water,  and  began  to  gather  enormous 
quantities  of  eroded  stuff  from  the  lake- 
beds  over  which  it  passed.  So  that  after 
this  great  basin,  covering  an  area  of  con- 


82  Ube  <3reat  plateau 

siderably  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
square  miles,  had  been  filled  in,  layer  by 
layer,  some  two  or  three  miles  deep,  at 
such  an  inordinate  cost  in  mountains  and 
at  such  a  reckless  expenditure  of  time, 
and  the  stuff  had  all  got  nicely  packed 
and  settled  into  good  solid  earth  crust,  the 
whole  thing  began  to  wash  out  again,  to 
make  new  land  somewhere  else. 

I  don't  know  where  it  all  went  to,  but  in 
the  later  periods,  at  least,  a  vast  amount 
went  down  the  Colorado.  But  gone  much 
of  it  is,  especially  of  the  upper  strata,  as 
you  might  see  for  yourself  if  you  went 
over  into  southern  Utah  and  northern 
Arizona,  into  the  land  beyond  the  Great 
Kaibab  of  which  we  caught  some  hasty 
glimpses  in  the  last  chapter. 

You  would  get  up  on  top  of  some  of 
the  upper  strata  of  the  rock  which  filled 
the  inland  sea,  now  forming  what  are 
known  as  the  High  Plateaus  of  Utah, 


83 


and  bear  off  south  toward  the  river. 
You  would  come  off  from  these  between 
the  Markdgunt  and  the  Pansagunt,  down 
a  series  of  gigantic  steps  hundreds  of  feet 
high,  each  the  edge  of  one  of  the  old  upper 
layers,  left  exposed  in  miles  of  gorgeous, 
fantastic  cliffs  by  the  wear  and  tear  and 
wash  of  the  centuries.  When  you  got 
down  from  the  remnants  of  the  top 
layers  you  would  have  descended  over 
six  thousand  feet  upon  the  lower  level, 
whose  surface  has  been  exposed  in  huge 
patches  over  hundreds  of  square  miles 
by  the  erosion  of  insatiate  streams. 

Even  then  you  would  not  have  reached 
the  bottom  of  the  inland  sea.  For  you 
would  make  your  way  southward  for 
forty  miles  across  a  rough  desert  country, 
on  the  top  of  what  our  learned  friends 
call  the  Carboniferous  strata,  until  you 
came  to  the  brink  of  the  canyon  at  its 
grandest  part  and  nearly  opposite  to 


84  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

the  haunts  of  the  tourists.  If  then  you 
should  descend  the  dizzy  mile  of  Car- 
boniferous cliffs  and  terraces  to  the  level 
of  the  river,  you  would  at  last  have 
reached  the  very  bottom  of  our  old  inland 
sea,  and  gone  a  thousand  feet  into  the 
rugged  granite  ledge  beneath,  which 
claims  the  kinship  of  age  with  my  paper- 
weight from  the  Laurentian  Hills.  This 
granite  ledge  which  formed  the  earliest 
bottom  of  the  inland  sea  emerges  from 
the  under  world  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  our  camp  upon  the  sand  bar, 
and  it  may  be  seen  from  many  points 
near  Grand  View,  sloping  up  into  the 
sunlight  from  beneath  some  layered  rem- 
nants of  the  ancient  sediment. 

The  secret  of  the  great  denudation  and 
of  this  wonderful  achievement  of  the 
Colorado  in  carving  out  of  rock  a  series 
of  canyons  about  five  hundred  miles  long, 
and,  in  one  place  at  least,  more  than 


85 


a  mile  deep,  with  a  multitude  of  tribu 
tary  chasms   and  gorges,   is  very  simple 
when    you    know    it.     The    old    lake-bed 
slowly  rose. 

At  first,  the  Colorado  River  and  its 
tributaries,  or  some  nameless  monstrous 
ancestor  of  these,  sweeping  over  the 
slowly  rising  surfaces,  planed  them  down 
in  most  relentless  fashion,  and  then  be- 
gan wearing  out  broad  shallow  stream- 
beds.  But  then  the  country  rose  more 
rapidly,  and  the  water  had  to  cut  deeper 
channels  in  the  rocks  in  order  to  get 
out  and  away  to  sea. 

Owing  in  part  to  the  wear  of  the  water 
itself,  but  more  to  the  ceaseless  bom- 
bardment of  the  suspended  sand  which 
it  bore  from  the  up  country,  or  picked 
up  as  it  went  along,  and  to  the  thump 
of  pebbles  and  boulders  which  it  swept 
on  in  flood-time,  the  river  kept  cutting 
down  as  the  strata  rose,  until  finally, 


86  Ube  Great  plateau 

when  what  was  left  of  our  inland  sea- 
bottom  got  thrust  up  so  that,  towering 
far  above  its  erstwhile  rocky  shores,  it 
had  to  be  called  a  plateau,  the  Colorado 
River  and  its  auxiliaries  found  them- 
selves at  the  bottom  of  a  series  of  colossal 
canyons  and  gorges,  where  they  are  to-day. 

Then,  increasing  the  complexity  of 
things  hereabouts,  the  strata  in  the  rising 
plateau  got  overstrained,  and  bent  up  in 
great  swells  or  ridges,  forming  subsidiary 
tables  or  plateaus  of  great  extent.  In 
other  places  the  strata  broke  in  cracks,  a 
hundred  miles  in  length  sometimes.  Along 
these  cracks  the  rock  layers  on  one  side 
or  the  other  often  sank  below  or  were 
pushed  above  the  general  level,  forming 
those  abrupt  cliffs  or  escarpments  which 
the  wise  ones  call  "  faults. ' 

So,  thrust  up  hundreds  of  feet,  over 
great  areas,  by  resistless  plu tonic  forces, 
losing  large  tracts  of  its  upper  strata  by 


rt 


rt 


rt 

a: 

OJ 


rt 


. 


IT. 

O 


IH 

O    -r 


o    ^ 


^ 


Worlfc^flDafefng  87 

earlier  floods  and  streams,  gouged  out  by 
the  Colorado  and  its  tributaries,  still  ex- 
isting or  extinct,  and  withal  crumpled 
and  cracked  and  displaced  in  varied  fash- 
ion when  the  earth's  crust  writhed,  the 
old  inland  sea-bottom,  now  our  Great 
Plateau,  certainly  has  won  through  much 
tribulation  the  right  to  glory  in  its 
stupendous  relics. 

But,  in  addition  to  all  the  rest,  a  mul- 
titude of  volcanoes  and  lava  streams  have 
at  one  time  or  another  burst  up  through 
the  strata  here  and  there,  some  of  them 
not  so  very  long  ago,  leaving  imposing 
mountains,  building  cinder  cones,  and 
deluging  the  land  with  molten  rock. 

That  is  my  story.  Its  plot  in  years  is 
long  indeed.  It  exploits  the  forces  which 
build  and  sculpture  worlds.  And  if  it 
lack  the  human  touch  which  lies  at  the 
heart  of  the  best  stories,  one  yet  may  link 
the  present  to  the  past  if  he  realise  that 


88  Ube  Great  plateau 

the  swift  turbid  stream  beside  our  camp 
still  as  sand  and  silt,  is  bearing  the  moun- 
tains to  the  sea;  that  the  click  of  pebble 
against  pebble  where  the  water  rushes 
over  shallows,  and  the  beat  of  rock  on 
rock  along  the  deeper  bottoms,  are  slowly 
wearing  stone  to  sand;  that  the  great 
river  is  cutting  its  channel  deeper  and 
wider  year  by  year,  while  the  shower 
gusts  and  the  frost  are  yet  at  work  shaping 
this  wonderland  into  those  forms  of  grace 
and  majesty  which  are  the  heritage  of 
millenniums.  The  great  inland  sea  is 
gone,  but  the  ripples  are  on  its  beaches 
still.  The  strange  beasts  have  vanished, 
but  their  bones  cumber  the  ground.  The 
earth's  crust  has  ceased  to  heave  and 
crack,  but  the  crumpled  broken  strata 
rise  in  imposing  hills  and  cliffs.  The 
volcanoes  are  cold  and  silent,  but  the  great 
cinder  cones  and  lava  beds  are  still  sinister. 
When  we  clamber  back  up  to  the  sur- 


KAorlfcAafcfng 


89 


face  of  the  earth  again  in  the  morning, 
passing  the  nigged  millennial  marks  as 
we  go,  we  shall  not  fail  to  bear  some 
uplift  of  spirit  from  this  little  sojourn 
with  the  world's  masterpiece. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  SUMMER  AMONG  CLIFF  DWELLINGS 

I  FANCY  that  to  most  people  the  word 
archaeology  conveys  suggestions 
largely  of  old  Greece  or  Rome  or 
Egypt,  of  fluted  pillars  and  damaged 
friezes,  or  of  statues  whose  heads  and 
legs  and  arms  have  mostly  gone  afield — 
of  these  and  sundry  things  which  agents 
of  societies  and  colleges  dig  up  with 
subscription  money,  and  write  books  about, 
or  lecture  upon  with  a  lantern  in  a  dark- 
ened room.  At  least  if  entirely  candid, 
the  writer  must  confess  that  this  was  the 
response  which  his  untutored  mental  ma- 
chinery offered  to  the  chance  suggestion 
of  the  word. 

By  this  it  will  be  perceived  that  the 

9o 


GUff  Dwellings  91 

writer  is,  as  to  archaeology,  one  sitting 
in  the  outer  darkness,  and  this  is  what 
he  wishes  to  be  clearly  understood.  For 
so  only  would  it  seem  wise  to  record 
in  haphazard  fashion  some  phases  of  a 
summer's  wandering  among  ruined  and 
forgotten  homesteads  of  the  great  South- 
west, and  a  layman's  conception  thus 
derived  of  a  group  of  prehistoric  Americans 
who  had  finished  their  strenuous  and 
narrow  lives,  and  faded  into  tradition 
and  myth  before  the  Spaniards,  zealous 
for  God  and  athirst  for  gold,  had  pene- 
trated to  the  heart  of  our  continent, 
and  even  before  Columbus  had  ventured 
across  the  unknown  sea. 

The  "cliff-builders"  lived  in  such  queer 
places,  built  so  well,  and  seem  to  have 
vanished  so  utterly,  that  by  many  they 
are  regarded  as  the  most  mysterious  of 
the  American  aborigines. 

But    those    who    know    their    World's 


92  TTbe  Great  plateau 

Fairs  or  who  have  read  the  results  of 
Bandelier's  toilsome  researches,  or  who 
have  turned  the  pages  of  the  great  reports 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  are  aware 
that  a  good  deal  is  known,  after  all,  about 
the  haunts  and  ways  of  the  American  "  Cliff- 
dwellers,"  and  that  some  shrewd  guesses 
are  current  about  their  story.  The  heart 
of  the  story  seems  to  be  that  they  were 
sedentary  Indians  allied  to  the  present 
Pueblos,  some  of  whom  were  long  ago 
driven  to  places  of  defence  and  conceal- 
ment under  stress  of  conflict  with  no- 
madic tribes,  who  built  no  houses,  and 
have  left  no  trace  in  the  land  across 
which  they  hunted  the  unhappy  refugees. 

Let  us  glance  a  moment  at  this  land. 

I  suppose  that  few  know  which  four  of 
the  commonwealths  of  the  United  States 
come  together  at  one  point  in  right- 
angled  corners.  The  writer  cannot  truly 
say  that  these  possessors  of  unusual  geo- 


Cliff  Dwellings  93 

graphic  lore  are  greatly  superior  to  the 
uninformed  majority.  But,  in  fact,  Colo- 
rado, Utah,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico 
do  meet  at  one  point,  in  one  of  the  most 
lonesome  and  forbidding  sections  of  the 
Great  Plateau.  And  a  few  venturesome 
persons  have  travelled  a  good  many  hot 
miles  to  tickle  their  fancies  by  sprawling 
their  anatomies  into  the  domain  of  four 
at  once  of  the  units  of  this  great  republic. 
A  glance  at  a  map  of  the  United  States 
shows  this  unique  relationship,  and  at- 
tention is  called  to  it  here  only  because 
this  easily  located  point  on  the  map  is 
near  the  northern  limit  of  a  little-known 
and  little-traversed  district  in  which  relics 
of  the  prehistoric  American  are  accessible, 
abundant,  and  well-preserved. 

If  one  takes  a  map  of  the  United  States 
drawn  on  such  a  scale  that  it  is  about 
seven  inches  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco,  and  puts  a  silver  quarter  of 


94  ^Tbe  Great  plateau 

a  dollar  upon  it  so  that  the  head  of  the 
alleged  bird  of  freedom,  looking  toward 
the  west,  lies  just  over  these  four  corners, 
he  will  have  covered  a  tract  considerably 
larger  than  New  England,  almost  as 
dry  as  Sahara,  and  as  rich  in  the  relics 
of  a  vanished  race  as  any  classic  country 
of  them  all. 

The  eastern  border  of  the  silver  "  quar- 
ter" lies  along  the  slopes  of  the  Great 
Continental  Divide  covering  the  sources 
of  the  Rio  Grande.  Its  western  segment 
bridges  the  awesome  depths  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  and  edges  close 
upon  the  foothills  of  the  Wasatch  range. 
The  Santa  Fe  Railway  traverses  the  lower 
third  of  the  tract.  Across  its  upper 
portion  the  San  Juan  River,  muddy  and 
treacherous,  rolls  sullenly  westward 
through  hot  reaches  of  desert,  and  then 
rushing  along  deep  gorges,  merges  at 
last  into  the  great  Colorado  as  it  sweeps 


Cliff  Dwellings  95 

and  roars  through  its  vast  self-sculptured 
chasm  on  its  way  to  the  Pacific.  North- 
ward the  great  hills  are  piled  confusedly 
together,  guarding  their  treasure  of  gold 
and  silver  and  jewels  and  coal.  To  the 
south  the  land  stretches  brokenly  away 
toward  Mexico. 

All  over  this  great  stretch  of  country, 
so  hot  in  its  untempered  summer  sun- 
shine that  one  wishes  that  he  had  not  come, 
so  bewitching  in  its  skies  and  clouds  and 
atmosphere  and  hills  that  not  for  worlds 
would  he  have  staid  away,  are  the  ruined 
homes  of  the  forgotten  people. 

One  finds  them  at  the  doors  of  Navajo 
wickiups  deep  in  the  wilderness,  where  old 
women  sit  weaving  blankets  in  the  sun. 
One  finds  them  hundreds  of  miles  from 
the  white  man's  dwellings  or  the  brown 
man's  haunts.  Sometimes  they  are  on 
high  plateaus,  sometimes  in  broad  valleys, 
sometimes  hung  along  the  crags  of  well- 


96  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

nigh  inaccessible  canyons,  or  perched,  it 
may  be,  in  dizzy  security  atop  of  some 
gigantic  rock  which  rises  sheer  and  soli- 
tary above  the  plain,  over  which  it  has 
kept  so  long  unheeded  vigil. 

Some  of  the  ruins  are  only  crumbled 
piles  of  stone,  half  covered  with  sand  or 
overgrown  with  grass  and  bushes  and 
trees,  which  the  untutored  traveller  would 
pass  unheeding.  Some  of  them  have 
walls,  often  several  storied,  still  upright 
and  firm,  or  partly  fallen  in.  Some,  out 
upon  the  bare  plateaus,  are  to-day  im- 
posing in  their  mass,  with  hundreds  of 
stone  chambers  quite  intact  and  accessi- 
ble, or  filled  with  the  stone  and  mortar  of 
other  walls  fallen  upon  them  from  story 
after  story  above. 

Some  of  the  forsaken  dwellings  are 
mere  caves  scooped  out  at  the  base  of 
cliffs.  Some  are  the  natural  or  widened 
" blow-outs'  on  volcanic  hills.  Finally 


o 
ttfl 

<— • 

ri 


Cliff  Dwellings  97 

along  the  walls  of  the  canyons,  some- 
times near  the  bottom,  but  more  often  far 
up  their  rugged  sides  upon  shelves  or 
caverns  in  the  softer  rock,  one  may 
see,  scarcely  visible  against  the  grey  bare 
surfaces,  tiny  stone  boxes  edging  sheer 
upon  the  face  of  the  cliff,  or  a  series  of 
these  more  conspicuous  and  strung  along 
on  various  levels,  with  only  a  bird's  or  a 
squirrel's  way  in  sight  to  reach  them. 

All  these  silent  witnesses  of  folks  that 
were  will  not  greatly  disturb  the  equa- 
nimity of  the  traveller,  who,  after  he  has 
learned  from  disappointing  scrambles  that 
relics  are  rare  on  the  floors  of  the  aban- 
doned rooms,  will  from  the  saddle  for  a 
little  look  and  wonder,  and  then  pass  on. 

But  there  comes  a  time  to  the  well  ad- 
vised and  well-conducted  wanderer  when 
everything  else  on  earth  for  a  moment 
fades.  He  has  ridden  through  miles 
it  may  be,  of  an  aggravating  jungle  of 


98  ZTbe  Oreat  plateau 

pinon  and  juniper,  and  has  passed  at  last 
into  a  wilderness  so  desperate  and  so  pro- 
found that  all  human  habitation  seems  a 
thing  of  infinite  remoteness. 

Suddenly  the  horse  stops.  The  smooth 
rock  reaches,  over  which  he  has  been 
making  his  way,  have  dropped  before 
him,  and  he  is  on  the  brink  of  a  chasm. 
The  walls  fall  sheer  at  the  top  some  hun- 
dreds of  feet,  then  slope,  then  fall  again 
to  a  shrub-clad  bottom  which  stretches 
away  into  blue  distance.  This  at  first 
is  all,  and  the  grandeur  of  the  scene 
alone  commands  attention.  But  slowly 
then  out  of  the  grey  shadows  of  the  far- 
ther side  a  picture  is  evolved,  so  strange, 
so  confusing,  so  improbable,  that  one  is 
disposed  to  wonder  if  the  sun  has  not 
played  him  false,  and  the  thing  before 
him  is  not  some  weird  delusion. 

It  is  a  great  group  of  ruins  perched 
midway  in  the  opposite  cliff,  many  sto- 


Cliff  H>wellfnas  99 

ried,  quaintly  towered,  with  doorways 
and  narrow  windows  still  intact,  or  stout 
walls  here  and  there  fallen  forward  into  the 
chasm,  revealing  chamber  within  cham- 
ber, tier  upon  tier,  all  silent,  motionless, 
and  utterly  uncanny  here  in  the  heart  of 
the  wilderness.  Here,  where  none  comes 
except  by  chance  a  roaming  Indian,  who 
hurries  in  superstitious  dread  away ;  where 
naught  lives  but  squirrels,  rabbits,  vul- 
tures, and  coyotes,  and  some  still  crawling 
things,  and  where  for  hours  no  sound  falls 
upon  the  hot,  slumberous  air — 

But  I  have  a  little  outrun  my  tale. 

While  the  cliff  dwellings  are  scattered 
here  and  there  all  over  the  region  which 
I  have  bounded  in  silver,  they  are  for  the 
most  part  not  large,  and  as  single  structures 
not  very  striking.  But  there  is  a  district 
lying  close  about  the  meeting-point  of 
Colorado,  Utah,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico 
in  which  not  only  the  prehistoric  ruins 


ioo  ttbe  (Breat  plateau 

of  the  plateaus  and  the  valleys,  but 
also  those  built  in  the  dizzy  recesses 
of  the  canyon  walls,  are  imposing  even  to 
grandeur. 

No  part  of  this  once  widely  inhabited 
region  is  so  rich  in  these  great  communal 
cliff  dwellings  as  a  high  plateau,  thirty 
miles  long  and  twelve  or  fifteen  wide, 
situated  largely  in  the  Ute  Indian  reser- 
vation in  south-western  Colorado,  and 
called  the  Mesa  Verde.  This  great  tim- 
bered upland,  rising  in  rough,  forbidding 
cliffs  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  feet 
above  the  surrounding  country,  slopes 
gradually  southward  toward  the  San  Juan 
River  in  Arizona. 

The  Mancos  River,  flowing  south-west- 
ward to  join  the  San  Juan,  at  some  remote 
period,  has  gouged  out  of  the  great  rock 
mesa  a  series  of  wild  canyons.  These  are 
now  mostly  dry,  and,  save  by  dim,  rough 
Indian  trails,  almost  impassable. 


o 

u 


-o 

»H 


rt 
U 

rt 


in 

~ 
O 


Cliff  Dwellings  101 

It  is  in  the  walls  of  these  arid  canyons  so 
desperately  aloof  even  yet,  that  the  "Cliff- 
men  '  built  some  of  their  most  elaborate 
and  imposing  fortress-homes.  It  was  here 
in  the  hollows  and  on  the  plateaus  above, 
that  for  years  which  no  man  to-day  may 
number,  they  wrung  a  meagre  subsistence 
from  the  parched  soil,  fighting  meanwhile, 
as  it  would  seem,  for  even  this  scanty 
foothold  in  the  wilderness.  And  then 
they  left  it  all  to  the  squirrels  and  vultures 
and  coyotes,  to  the  wandering  Ute  and 
Navajo,  to  the  lizards  and  the  sun. 

Nearly  all  of  the  cliff  dwellings  of  the 
Mesa  Verde  have  been  vigorously,  though 
none  of  them  exhaustively,  explored. 

The  delver  among  these  ruins  is  early 
and  continually  impressed  by  the  won- 
derful preservation  of  things  of  the  most 
delicate  texture;  things  which  in  most 
climates  would  speedily  have  rotted  and 
crumbled,  such  as  fabrics  and  feathers 


102  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

and  corn-husks  and  the  tassels  of  the 
corn  and  fragile  wood  fibres.  The  cli- 
mate of  these  regions  is  so  very  dry,  and 
the  remnants  of  household  articles  have 
been  so  absolutely  protected  from  rain 
and  snow  in  the  deep  recesses  of  the  great 
caverns  in  the  cliffs  where  the  houses  are, 
that  the  usual  disintegrating  processes 
of  time  have  here  been  held  largely  in 
check. 

It  would  make  too  long  a  story  were  I 
to  enter  upon  a  description  of  these  great 
houses  in  the  cliffs,  or  recount  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  the  explorer  as  he  seeks  for  the 
old  pathways  along  the  ledges,  or  scram- 
bles up  the  bare  rocks,  clinging  to  shallow 
grooves  and  notches  which  the  old  "'Cliff- 
men  '  made  so  long  ago,  and  which  the 
wear  of  centuries  has  not  yet  effaced 
Nor  need  I  emphasise  the  toilsome  nature 
of  the  explorer's  task  when  he  enters 
upon  the  search  in  the  choking  dust  heaps 


Cliff  Dwellings  103 

which  the  ages  have  strewn  over  all  the 
ruins,  and  under  the  piles  of  fallen  masonry, 
for  the  secrets  of  the  burial-places.  The 
sun  is  very  powerful,  the  dust  is  insuffer- 
ably annoying,  the  stones  which  must  be 
turned  are  legion,  and  what  is  left  of  the 
early  American  himself,  when  you  do 
get  at  him,  is  not  a  pleasing  thing  to  behold, 
and  may  be  hauntingly  uncanny. 

For  any  one  who  chooses  now  to  gather 
them,  the  ancient  pottery  and  other  uten- 
sils of  the  "Cliff-"  and"  Plains-dwellers" 
have  considerable  value  for  purposes  of 
sale  to  tourists  and  collectors.  In  some 
parts  of  this  region  it  is  the  practice  of 
the  settlers,  on  Sundays  or  other  holidays, 
to  organise  picnics  to  the  ruins.  And 
the  rustic  swain  is  wont  to  signalise  his 
regard  for  his  Dulcinea  by  digging  for  her 
out  of  the  desolate  graves  what  articles 
the  chances  of  the  hour  may  bring.  She, 
cosily  seated  amid  piles  of  broken  pottery, 


io4  TTbe  Great  plateau 

darting  lizards  and  dead  men's  bones, 
smiles  complacently  the  while  upon  the 
dusty  delver  from  the  chaste  recesses 
of  a  sun-umbrella. 

If,  now,  without  further  parley  as  to  the 
details  of  the  ruins  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  their  exploration,  we  turn  to  the  vari- 
ous things  which  the  old  "  Cliff-dwellers  ' 
have  left,  many  of  which  one  may  see  for 
himself  to-day  upon  the  spot,  and  try  to 
frame  from  them  a  conception  of  the 
masters  of  these  homes,  we  shall  find  that  a 
good  deal  may  be  read  out  of  the  dark- 
ness of  forgotten  centuries  without  special 
light  from  the  torches  of  the  professional 
archaeologists. 

He  was  a  dark-skinned  fellow,  this  old 
"  Cliff-dweller,"  as  his  mummified  remains 
show  plainly  enough.  The  hair  was  usu- 
ally black,  and  moderately  coarse  and 
long.  He  was  of  medium  stature,  and 
the  back  of  his  skull  was  flattened  by  be- 


Cliff  Dwellings  105 

ing  tied  firmly  against  a  board  in  infancy, 
as  among  some  races  is  the  custom  still. 
He  had  fair  teeth,  much  worn,  as  the 
years  grew  upon  him,  from  munching  ill- 
ground  corn. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  from  the 
articles  thus  far  discovered  just  how  much 
this  prehistoric  man  was  devoted  to  dress, 
or  rather,  to  undress.  A  simple  breech- 
clout  was  certainly  in  vogue,  and  there 
is  considerable  reason  to  think  that  this 
was,  at  times  at  least,  the  piece  de  resist- 
ance in  his  costume.  But  parts  of  hide 
jackets,  fur  caps,  blankets  made  of  feathers 
tied  on  to  a  coarse  net  of  cord,  are  also 
in  evidence,  and  mostly  preserved  among 
the  furnishings  of  the  dead.  A  variety 
of  sandals  and  other  rude  foot-gear  has 
been  found,  some  woven  of  yucca  leaves, 
some  braided  of  other  vegetable  fibres 
some  rudely  constructed  from  corn-husks. 

A  certain  passion   for  personal  adorn- 


106  Ube  Great  plateau 

ment  and  devotion  to  superstition  is  evi- 
dent from  the  rough  beads  and  the  strings 
of  bones  and  small  shells  which  he  wore, 
while  amulets  of  turquoise  or  shell  or 
broken  pottery  pierced  for  suspension 
about  the  neck  are  not  seldom  found. 
He  brushed  his  hair  with  tightly  tied 
bunches  of  stiff  grass,  with  one  end 
trimmed  square,  and  his  long  coarse 
black  hairs  are  clinging  still  to  some  of 
them. 

The  spirit  of  the  age  now  prompts  us  to 
ask  what  did  he  do  for  a  living,  this  dark 
fellow  in  scanty  attire,  with  a  tinge  of 
vanity  and  superstition? 

He  was,  first  of  all,  a  farmer.  He 
raised  corn  and  beans  and  gourds  in  the 
thin  soil  of  the  mesas,  or  upon  the  lesser 
slopes,  which  still  show  traces  of  scanty 
terraces.  Corn  is  frequently  found,  some- 
times still  on  the  cob,  sometimes  shelled 
off  and  stowed  in  jars,  while  corn-cobs  and 


Cliff  Dwellings  107 

corn-husks  are  scattered  everywhere  among 
the  rubbish.  The  beans  and  gourds  are 
less  abundant.  The  gourd  seeds  were 
sometimes  carefully  stowed  away.  The 
only  farming  implements  which  have 
been  found  are,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
stout  sticks  pointed  or  flattened  at  one 
end,  quite  like  the  planting-sticks  still  in 
use  by  primitive  agriculturists. 

It  is  evident  enough  that  in  his  time,  as 
now,  his  country  was  very  dry,  and  water 
had  to  be  carefully  husbanded.  One  finds 
here  and  there  traces  of  shallow  reservoirs 
and  what  seem  to  have  been  irrigating 
ditches.  Sloping  hollows  in  the  rocks 
near  the  houses  are  not  infrequently 
dammed  across  their  lower  ends,  appar- 
ently to  save  the  melting  snow  or  the 
waste  of  showers. 

The  considerable  number  of  large  jars 
would  indicate  that  water  was  sometimes 
stored  also  in  the  houses.  The  earthen 


io8  Ube  Great  plateau 

ladles  or  dippers  not  infrequently  found 
in  the  ruins  or  in  the  graves  are  often 
much  worn  and  bevelled  on  the  edges, 
an  indication  that  they  were  used  to  ladle 
up  water  from  hollows  in  the  rocks,  such 
as  abound  on  the  plateaus  above  and 
about  the  cliffs.  Small  springs  still  exist 
near  some  of  the  largest  cliff-houses. 

That  the  "  cliff-man '  was  skilled  in 
masonry  the  well  shaped  and  finished 
stones,  the  trim  walls  hung  upon  steep 
sloping  rock  surfaces,  sheer  at  the  edges 
of  cliffs,  where  they  rest  to-day  firm  and 
secure,  abundantly  prove.  The  mortar 
of  most  of  the  houses  was  very  cleverly 
laid  in,  and  between  the  tiers  pebbles  and 
small  stones  were  set,  giving  a  pleasing 
break  to  the  lines  of  the  masonry. 

The  rooms  of  these  great  dwellings 
were  apparently  not  all  built  at  one  time, 
and  in  size,  shape,  and  arrangement  con- 
form to  the  exigencies  of  the  situation. 


Skilful  Prehistoric   Masonry. 


Cliff  Dwellings  109 

Some  of  them  are  many  feet  across,  some 
so  small  that  one  can  hardly  stand  up- 
right in  them  and  can  reach  from  side  to 
side.  Some  communicate  with  one  an- 
other by  low  openings,  through  which 
one  must  crawl  on  hands  and  knees; 
others  are  entered  only  through  holes  in 
the  ceilings.  Some  of  the  rooms  are  so 
small  that  they  could  have  been  used  only 
for  storage. 

The  great  sloping  arches  of  the  caverns 
in  which  the  larger  cliff-houses  are  bulit 
shelter  most  of  them  from  above.  But 
when  rooms  were  exposed  or  were  built 
one  above  another,  the  roofs  or  floors  are 
supported  by  timber  girders,  whose  rough 
ends  witness  to  the  toilsome  processes  in- 
volved in  their  shaping  with  such  tools 
alone  as  men  of  the  stone  age  could 
command.  Upon  the  heavier  timbers  they 
laid  smaller  sticks,  tied  osiers  and  cedar 
bark  to  these,  and  plastered  the  whole 


no  Ube  Great  plateau 

over  with  thick  layers  of  mud  or  mortar. 
A  large  part  of  the  timber  is  well  preserved. 

Within,  the  masonry  is  usually  coated 
with  a  thin  layer  of  plaster,  and  the  sweep 
of  the  rough  palms  of  the  old  artisans  is 
still  plain  on  many  a  chamber  wall. 
They  had  tiny  fire-places  in  the  corners 
of  some  of  the  little  rooms.  In  others 
the  fire  was  in  a  pit  in  the  floor  at  the 
centre.  The  smoke  from  the  fires  found 
its  way  out  as  best  it  could  through 
holes  in  the  ceilings.  So  the  walls  are 
often  very  black,  and  from  some  of  them 
you  can  rub  off  the  soot  upon  your  hands 
to-day.  But  when  the  wall  got  too 
sooty  a  thin  fresh  layer  of  plaster  was 
laid  on  over  it.  In  some  of  the  larger 
rooms  one  can  count  sixteen,  and  perhaps 
more,  thin  layers  of  fresh  plaster,  with 
the  soot  in  streaks  of  black  between  them. 

Furniture  there  is  no  trace  of,  unless 
one  reckon  as  such  a  low  stone  step  or 


Cliff  Dwellings 


bench  which  runs  around  some  of  the 
larger  rooms. 

Many  of  the  ruins  contain  large  round 
chambers  with  the  narrow  stone  bench 
along  the  wall,  and  a  pit  in  the  centre 
for  a  fire.  They  have  usually  a  pyramidal 
or  dome-like  roof  of  large  timbers,  whose 
ends  rest  upon  stone  piers  which  project 
into  the  rooms.  The  walls  of  these  rooms, 
which  seem  to  have  been  places  of  assem- 
bly and  are  called  estufas  or  kivas,  are 
usually  very  sooty.  In  them,  too,  one 
finds  such  evidence  of  an  intelligent 
provision  for  ventilation  as  shames  some 
of  our  practices  to-day.  Flues,  often  of 
considerable  size,  are  built  into  the  walls, 
leading  from  the  open  air  down  into  the 
chambers,  and  opening  at  the  floor-level. 
In  front  of  this  opening,  and  between  it 
and  the  fire-pit,  was  usually  a  stone  or 
wooden  screen. 

Little   square   cubbies   were   not   infre- 


H2  Ube  Great  JMateau 

quently  made  inside  the  rooms  by  leaving 
a  stone  out  of  the  masonry.  These  are 
especially  common  in  the  large  round 
chambers  just  mentioned,  and  small  uten- 
sils and  ornaments  have  been  frequently 
found  stowed  away  in  them.  Many  of 
the  rooms  have  wooden  pegs  built  into 
the  walls,  apparently  for  hanging  things 
upon. 

The  stout  timbers  which  form  the  floors 
of  the  higher  rooms  were  sometimes  left 
sticking  through  the  masonry  outside  the 
walls,  and  small  cross-sticks  being  tied 
upon  them,  they  made  excellent  balconies 
-a  little  dangerous,  perhaps,  if  some 
skulking  marauder  with  a  bow  and  arrows 
should  happen  to  creep  to  the  nearest 
cliff  edge  above,  but  airy  and  with  com- 
manding outlook. 

Firesticks  have  been  left,  with  round 
charred  ends,  such  as  the  early  folks 
the  world  over  were  wont  to  twirl  upon 


Arrcnv-Heads,  Spear-Heads,  etc.,  of  the  Cliff-folk. 


Cliff  Dwellings  113 

another  stick  and  so  win  fire.  Little 
bunches  of  cedar-bark  strips  closely  tied 
with  yucca  threads,  and  burnt  at  one  end 
where  they  have  been  used  as  tinder, 
are  not  uncommon  'finds'  in  the  rooms 
and  in  the  rubbish  heaps. 

No  trace  of  metal  tools  or  utensils  has 
ever  been  found  in  these  ruins.  The 
"  Cliff-dweller  "  was  a  man  of  the  stone  age. 
He  was  no  mean  artisan,  however,  as  may 
be  seen  by  his  stone  arrow-heads  and  spear- 
heads, by  his  stone  axes  and  hammers, many 
of  them,  thanks  to  the  dry  climate,  with 
the  wooden  handle  still  tied  firmly  on  to 
them.  He  had  knives  made  of  chipped 
stone  tied  into  the  end  of  a  stick,  and 
often  made  fast  with  some  sort  of  pitch. 
Sharp,  smooth  stones,  which  may  have 
been  used  for  skinning  large  game,  are 
noc  rare. 

Small  stone  mortars  with  spherical  or 
cylindrical  pestles  are  not  uncommon, 

8 


H4  TTbe  Great  plateau 

and  one  may  safely  conjecture  that  they 
were  employed  to  grind  the  mineral 
colours  used  in  the  decoration  of  pottery. 
Stone-tipped  drills  have  been  found,  which 
were  doubtless  used  to  make  holes  in  their 
amulets  and  beads,  and  in  mending  broken 
pottery.  There  are  corn-mills — great  stone 
slabs,  a  little  hollowed,  and  set  aslant 
in  the  floor  at  one  side  of  some  of  the 
rooms,  with  a  flat  narrow  slip  of  stone  to 
be  grasped  in  the  hands  in  grinding. 

Our  early  American  was  something 
of  a  hunter,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
deer  bones  often  found.  He  was  a  war- 
rior, too.  Many  of  his  houses  are  not 
only  built  in  inaccessible  and  well-pro- 
tected places,  but  loop-holes  sloping 
towards  the  avenues  of  approach  are 
common  in  the  walls,  and  the  doors  have 
ample  provision  for  closure  by  tightly 
fitting  slabs  of  stone.  Bows  still  loosely 
strung  with  sinew,  and  stone- tipped  arrows 


Cliff  Dwellings  115 

with  the  shaft  intact,  have  defied  time, 
too.  With  these  and  stone-tipped  spears 
and  stone  knives  and  wooden  clubs  our 
warrior  did  his  hunting  and  his  fighting. 

The  "cliff-man"  had  one  domestic  animal 
and,  so  far  as  can  be  made  out,  only  one, 
and  that  was  the  turkey,  or  something 
very  like  it.  This  bird  must  have  been 
kept  in  considerable  numbers.  Its  feathers 
are  found  in  abundance,  and  were  used, 
as  I  have  said,  to  make  blankets.  Bunches 
of  the  quills  have  been  discovered  stowed 
away  in  the  houses.  This  domestic  pet 
has  been  pictured  more  often  than  any 
other  creature  by  the  man  of  the  cliffs, 
and  most  frequently  upon  his  pottery. 

There  is  no  evidence  of  the  use  of  written 
characters  by  these  people,  but  here  and 
there  simple  geometric  or  irregular  figures 
are  found  in  dull  colour  on  the  plaster 
and  on  the  faces  of  the  cliffs.  There  is 
relatively  little  animal  drawing,  but 


n6  TTbe  <3reat  plateau 

occasionally  crude  linear  figures  of  men, 
mountain  sheep  and  birds  are  found. 
Similar  crude  pictographs  are  occasionally 
cut  in  rough  shallow  lines  in  the  rocks 
near  the  dwellings.  On  the  whole,  such 
artistic  capacities  as  this  old  barbarian 
possessed  were  but  scantily  exercised 
upon  his  walls. 

In  his  pottery,  however,  as  well  as  in 
animal  figures  and  various  other  objects 
made  of  shell,  jade,  onyx,  and  turquoise 
among  which  are  some  very  handsome 
mosaics,  we  find  such  expression  of  the 
artistic  sense  as  gives  him  a  very  respect- 
able standing  in  the  hierarchy  of  early 
American  art. 

While  whole  pieces  of  pottery  are 
occasionally  found  in  protected  places 
in  the  abandoned  rooms,  and  fragments 
are  scattered  in  profusion  everywhere, 
the  larger  part  of  the  well-preserved 
articles  of  clay  has  come  from  the  burial 


- 


Prehistoric  Pictographs. 
On  the  face  of  the  cliffs  facing  the  San  Juan  River,  in  Utah. 


Cliff  Dwellings  117 

places.  So  I  must  linger  a  moment  to 
speak  of  these. 

The  rock  about  the  cliff  dwellings  is 
usually  so  scantily  clad  with  soil  that 
earth  burial  was  not  accomplished  without 
difficulty.  The  places  outside  the  dwell- 
ings most  commonly  selected  for  this 
purpose  were  low  shelves  in  the  cliffs, 
from  which  the  earth  was  scooped,  and 
shallow  *  pits,  sometimes  stoned  at  the 
sides  or  lined  with  clay,  were  thus  fash- 
ioned. 

But  one  of  the  most  common  burial- 
places  of  the  "  cliff -man  "  of  the  Mesa  Verde 
was  the  rubbish  heaps  which  he  allowed 
to  accumulate,  often  to  an  enormous 
extent,  in  the  low,  dark,  angular  space 
at  the  back  of  his  houses,  where  the  sloping 
roof  of  the  caverns  in  the  cliff  met  the 
horizontal  shelf  on  which  the  houses 
stand. 

These  great  rubbish  heaps,  often  several 


n8  tlbe  (5reat  plateau 

feet  deep,  are  made  up  of  dirt  and  dust 
of  unrecognisable  origin,  of  turkey  drop- 
pings, and  of  all  sorts  of  waste  from  the 
man  and  his  housekeeping.  There  are 
feathers  and  corn-husks  and  corn-cobs, 
fragments  of  bone  and  wood,  rinds  and 
stems  of  gourds,  scraps  of  yucca,  half- 
burned  corn-cobs,  pieces  of  charcoal,  bits 
of  worn  fabrics,  cast-off  sandals,  and 
broken  pottery  in  abundance. 

Now  and  then  the  delvers  in  these 
back-door  rubbish  heaps  have  come  upon 
whole  pieces  of  pottery  or  stone  imple- 
ments and  other  things  which  have  evi- 
dently been  hidden  there,  perhaps  in 
times  of  siege.  The  whole  material  is 
disagreeable  on  account  of  the  fine  choking 
dust  which  rises  whenever  it  is  stirred,  but 
it  is  not  otherwise  offensive  now. 

It  was  in  this  dark,  protected  place,  then, 
that  the  cliff -man  often  buried  his  dead. 
The  legs  and  arms  were  usually  drawn 


Cliff  Dwellings  119 


to  the  body,  which  was  tied  and  bound 
with  yucca  leaves,  and  protected  in  vari- 
ous ways  from  direct  contact  with  the 
earth,  sometimes  by  wooden  or  osier  or 
yucca  mats,  or  by  feather  cloth  or  bas- 
ketry, or  slabs  of  stone.  Many  of  the 
skeletons  are  well  preserved,  and  occa- 
sionally the  whole  body  is  mummified 
and  in  very  perfect  state.  Some  bodies 
have  been  found  walled  up  in  the  smaller 
rooms. 

But  it  is  of  the  pottery  that  I  wish  es- 
pecially to  speak.  It  is  all  fashioned  by 
the  hands,  for  no  tidings  of  the  potter's 
wheel  had  ever  reached  these  folks,  and 
their  skill  in  the  management  of  clay 
justly  commands  admiration.  Some  of 
the  great  jars  holding  several  gallons  are 
scarcely  one-eighth  of  an  inch  thick,  are 
of  excellent  shape  and  symmetry,  and, 
when  struck,  ring  like  a  bell.  The  old 
cliff-man — or  woman — knew  how  to  mix 


120  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

pounded  stone,  or  sand,  or  old  pottery 
broken  into  small  fragments  with  his  clay 
to  prevent  shrinkage  and  cracking.  He 
knew  how  to  bake  his  finished  articles, 
and  his  fancy  in  shaping  and  decorating 
was  of  no  mean  order. 

Some  of  the  ware  is  grey  and  smooth 
and  undecorated;  some  forms  show  that 
it  was  built  up  by  strips  of  clay,  coil  upon 
coil.  In  many  pieces  regular  indentations 
made  by  the  finger  tips  or  nail  upon  the 
coils  give  the  general  impression  of  basket- 
work.  The  tiny  ridges  of  the  maker's 
finger-tips  are  often  marked  upon  this 
indented  coilware  with  a  sharpness  which 
rivals  any  of  the  impressions  which  one 
can  get  to-day  on  paper,  with  all  the 
refinement  of  Galton's  fascinating  but 
smeary  technique.  Then  there  is  a  third 
kind  of  pottery,  in  which  the  article  has 
received  a  surface  wash  of  light  mineral 
colour,  upon  which  are  decorations  of 


»H 

~. 


- 


2  8 

«  ~ 


2 

^          § 


Cliff  Dwellings  121 

various  forms,  usually  in  black,  but  some- 
times in  black  and  red.  It  is  not  very 
common  to  find  red  pottery  in  the  region 
about  the  Mesa  Verde,  but  occasionally 
a  piece  is  unearthed. 

The  forms  of  pottery  are  various. 
There  are  bowls  of  many  shapes  and 
sizes,  usually  decorated  on  the  inside 
only.  There  are  long  jars  and  short  jars, 
some  with  wide  and  some  with  narrow 
mouths.  There  are  vases,  pitchers,  cups, 
ladles,  platters,  sieves,  mugs,  and  bottles, 
and  many  other  queer-shaped  things  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  name.  The  colours 
were  mineral,  and  very  durable,  as  is 
evident  from  their  excellent  preservation 
after  hundreds  of  years  of  burial. 

The  decoration  is  frequently  almost 
concealed,  when  the  articles  are  exhumed, 
by  a  rough  whitish  incrustation  of  lime 
which  through  the  years  of  burial  has 
gathered  on  the  surfaces.  Washing  with 


122  Ube  Great  plateau 

dilute  acid  discloses  the  pattern  under- 
neath. 

Not  infrequently  one  finds  bowls  and 
jars  which  have  been  cracked  or  broken, 
and  mended  by  drilling  holes  along  the 
cracks  and  tying  the  pieces  together  with 
yucca  cords.  A  great  deal  of  care  was 
evidently  taken  in  fashioning  and  deco- 
rating some  of  this  pottery,  and  the 
thrifty  old  "  Cliff-dweller '  knew  very  well 
that  a  mended  jar  was  useful  to  store  corn 
and  flour  and  such  dry  things  in,  even  if  it 
would  no  longer  hold  water. 

One  often  finds,  inside  the  pieces  of  pot- 
tery in  the  graves,  fragments  of  the  min- 
eral from  which  the  pigment  is  ground, 
and  smooth  stones  with  which,  apparently, 
the  surface  of  the  clay  articles  was 
smoothed  and  polished.  Arrow-heads, 
bone  implements,  beads,  shells,  amulets, 
corn,  and  a  variety  of  their  pathetic  be- 
longings are  not  infrequently  found  packed 


Cliff  Dwellings  123 

within  the  jars  and  bowls  beside  the 
crumbled  bodies. 

And  the  "  Cliff-dweller"  smoked  a  pipe! 
I  feel  constrained  to  leave  it  to  the  ar- 
chaeologists to  decide  whether  he  smoked 
for  the  fun  of  it,  or  with  devotional  or 
ceremonial  intent,  and  what  he  smoked. 
But  one  short-stemmed  pipe  of  clay,  dec- 
orated in  red,  and  blackened  within  from 
use,  and  one  half  shaped  in  process  of 
construction,  are  in  my  own  collection. 
It  is  a  dreamy  land,  this  which  he  lived 
in,  and  I  hope  that  he  lay  in  the  shadows 
sometimes  in  the  lulls  of  his  strenuous 
life,  and,  with  no  urgent  thought  of  his 
gods  or  his  etiquette,  puffed  idly  and  at 
ease  his  little  dudheen. 

Baskets  and  mats  showing  consider- 
able variety  in  the  weaving  and  a 
distinct  appreciation  of  ornament  witness 
to  the  cliff -man's  skill.  Coarse  grass, 
yucca,  willow,  and  split  sticks  are  the 


124  TTbe  Great  plateau 

materials    which   he   used   for   this    pur- 
pose. 

The  bottoms  of  most  of  the  jars  and 
larger  clay  vessels  are  rounded,  and,  so 
far  as  I  have  seen,  never  have  the  hollow 
underneath  which  in  modern  Indian  pot- 
tery facilitates  its  carrying  poised  upon 
the  head.  And  so  plaited  rings,  which 
were  doubtless  used  for  steadying  the  jars 
upon  the  head  or  on  the  ground,  are,  as 
might  be  expected,  not  uncommon. 

But  his  skill  as  a  weaver  was  not  lim- 
ited to  basketry,  for  fabrics  of  varied 
texture  and  composition  are  largely  in 
evidence.  The  yucca,  or  Spanish-bayonet, 
which  grows  all  over  the  arid  country  of 
the  "  Cliff-dweller,"  was  one  of  the  things 
which  he  had  to  thank  his  gods  for,  hour 
by  hour. 

He  hung  the  narrow  leaves  about  his 
houses  in  neatly  tied  dried  bunches,  ready 
for  coarser  purposes.  He  used  them  in  this 


Cliff  Dwellings  125 

form  as  cords  to  tie  slender  sticks  in  place 
upon  his  ceilings,  on  which  the  mud  was 
plastered ;  with  them  he  bound  his  sandals 
to  his  feet,  pieced  out  bands  of  cloth  which 
were  too  worn  or  weak  to  steady  burdens 
carried  on  his  back;  with  them  he  tied 
together  the  sticks  which  framed  the 
baby  board  and  bound  the  dead  for  burial. 
With  them  he  mended  broken  bowls,  and 
wove  coarse  nets  around  the  great  water 
jars  for  support  or  suspension;  while, 
woven  close,  they  made  durable  sandal 
soles  and  coarse  baskets. 

Then  he  beat  out  the  brittle  woody 
part  of  these  precious  yucca  leaves,  with 
wooden  sticks,  and  out  of  the  fine,  tough, 
pliable  fibrils  which  were  left  he  twisted 
threads  and  cords,  the  warp  and  woof  of 
his  most  common  woven  fabrics.  Some 
of  these  fabrics  are  coarse  and  rough; 
some  are  smooth  and  fine.  In  some  of 
them  the  yucca  cord  forms  the  warp, 


126  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

while  the  woof  is  of  cotton,  dark  and  light, 
with  woven  pattern. 

Whether  he  used  the  narrow  strips  of 
the  leaf,  or  cords  or  rope  twisted  of  their 
fibres,  the  old  cliff  fellow  knew  how  to  tie 
good  square  knots  which  have  not  slipped 
a  jot  for  some  hundreds  of  years.  I  have 
sought  in  vain  for  "squaw"  knots,  among 
thousands  of  these  bits  of  handiwork,  on 
roof  and  ceiling  and  mended  fabric.  And 
he  who  never  saw  the  sea  could  make  a 
"ring  splice"  to  shame  a  sailor. 

The  feather  cloth  is,  in  some  re- 
spects, one  of  the  most  noteworthy  of 
this  old  citizen's  productions.  He  hetch- 
elled  his  dry  yucca  leaves,  twisted  their 
fibrils  into  coarse  cords,  tied  these  to- 
gether to  form  a  wide-meshed  net,  and 
then  inch  by  inch  he  bound  them  close 
with  little  tufts  of  fluffy  blue-grey  feathers, 
ravaged,  no  doubt,  largely  from  his  turkey 
pets ;  or  sometimes  he  twisted  the  feathers 


Cliff  Dwellings  127 

into  the  cords  as  he  made  them.  Some 
of  the  feather  blankets  so  toilsomely  con- 
structed have  been  found  in  excellent 
preservation,  but  in  most  of  them  the 
feathers  are  largely  frayed  away.  They 
must  have  been  very  warm,  and  were 
apparently  among  the  choicest  posses- 
sions of  these  thrifty  folks.  A  little  fine- 
textured  cloth  all  of  cotton  has  been 
found. 

v/ 

The  utensils  of  some  of  his  milder  in- 
dustries  the  clifT-man  largely  fashioned 
out  of  bone.  He  ground  broad  bevelled 
edges  on  the  broken  segments  of  the  leg 
bones  of  larger  animals,  like  the  deer, 
forming  crude  knives  and  chisels  and 
scrapers;  but  of  smaller  bones,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  long  bones  of  the  turkey, 
he  made  awls  and  punches  and  needles. 
About  the  surface  of  the  rocks,  near  the 
cliff  dwellings,  are  shallow  hollows  and 
grooves,  worn,  no  doubt,  by  the  old  artisan 


128  TTbe  Great  plateau 

in  shaping  and  polishing  his  stone  and 
bone  implements. 

I  was  greatly  puzzled,  during  our  delv- 
ings  among  the  rubbish  heaps  behind  the 
ruins,  by  numerous  small  irregular  wads 
of  fine  strips  of  corn-husk  or  other  fibre, 
which  had  been  bruised  and  closely  mat- 
ted together;  and  it  was  not  until  I  had 
later  become  acquainted  with  the  Hopi 
Indians,  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to 
the  southward  of  the  Mesa  Verde,  that 
I  found  a  clew.  Here  I  saw  them  pick 
out  of  a  bowl  of  thick  brown  stuff,  which 
they  said  was  sweet,  and  which  cer- 
tainly was  sticky,  similar  looking  wads 
of  fibre,  and,  thrusting  them  into  their 
mouths,  begin  vigorous  mastication.  Then 
I  realised  that  the  husk  wads  of  the  rubbish 
heaps  had  probably  been,  while  in  their 
pristine  state,  the  prehistoric  avatars  of 
the  chewing-gum. 

A  dark-skinned,   black-haired,   scantily 


Relics  of  a  Primitive  Culture. 

\t  the  top  are  two  Hunting  Fetishes  and  a  Prayer-stick  of  the  modern 
eblo  Indians.      Below  are  objects  from  the  graves  of  the  ClifT-Dwellers  : 


Cliff  Dwellings  129 

clad  barbarian,  then,  it  seems  he  was,  our 
dweller  in  the  cliffs,  the  real  American. 
Farmer,  mason,  potter,  weaver,  basket- 
maker,  tailor,  jeweller,  hunter,  priest, 
and  warrior  all  in  one.  Daring  and  hardy 
he  was  to  scale  those  cliffs,  and  build  upon 
their  brinks  the  houses  into  which  he 
gathered  sustenance  wrung  from  the  un- 
willing soil.  Diligent  and  thrifty  he  was 
certainly.  Skilful,  too,  as  skill  goes  in 
the  stage  of  evolvement  up  to  which  he 
had  slowly  won  his  way.  Superstitious, 
doubtless,  as  is  ever  the  case  with  those 
who  frame  their  notions  of  the  world  face 
to  face  with  the  crude  forces  of  nature. 
Dreamy,  I  fancy  he  must  have  been,  for 
he  looked  abroad  through  red  dawns  and 
hazy  noontides  and  witching  twilights 
fading  very  slowly  into  night. 

And  he  was — well — he  was  undoubt- 
edly dirty.  Life  has  more  urgent  uses  for 
water  than  bathing  in  these  grim  arid 


130  TTbe  (Breat  plateau 

wastes.  But  nature  is  a  very  efficient 
sanitarian  in  dry  climates  such  as  his,  and 
;'use  can  make  sweet  the  peach's  shady 
side. '  So  let  us  say  no  more  about  it. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  archaeologist 
to  learn  and  tell  you,  or  to  guess  and  tell 
you,  when  these  early  Americans  lived, 
where  they  came  from,  and  whither  they 
have  gone.  A  group  of  skeletons,  with 
skulls  broken  as  if  by  blows,  which  the 
early  explorers  found  lying  unburied  in  a 
heap  upon  the  floor,  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  in  one  case  at  least  there  was  a  fierce 
dramatic  ending  to  the  story.  The  archaic 
character  of  the  pottery  and  the  size  of 
some  trees  which  have  grown  upon  the 
ruined  masonry  prove  that  several  cen- 
turies at  least  have  passed  since  their 
abandoned  homes  fell  into  the  custody  of 
the  squirrels  and  the  elements.  The  mod- 
ern Indian  shuns  them,  as  a  rule,  as  he 
does  all  things  which  savour  of  death ;  and 


Cliff  Dwellings  131 

so,  until  a  dozen  years  or  so  ago,  the  silent 
dwellings  held  unchallenged  the  secrets  of 
the  vanished  race. 

But  if  the  fortunes  of  the  reader  should 
lead  him,  as  was  the  writer's  hap,  to  cross 
on  Indian  trails  the  dreary  plains  and 
barren  ridges  which,  stretching  south- 
westward  from  the  Mesa  Verde  into 
Arizona,  through  the  country  of  the 
Navajos,  bring  one  at  last  to  the  Hopi 
pueblos  perched  upon  towering  rock  islets 
in  the  desert,  where,  since  the  Spaniards 
found  them  more  than  three  centuries 
ago,  they  have  lived  alone  and  almost 
untouched  by  the  tides  of  civilisation 
which  have  faltered  and  stopped  a 
hundred  miles  away  If  he  should  for 
a  time  dwell  there  among  the  simple, 
kindly  people  who  will  bid  him  welcome 
to  their  homes,  he  will  come  to  realise,  I 
think,  that  these  are  at  least  the  Cliff- 
dwellers  "kind  of  folks,"  though  some 


132  TTbe  Great  plateau 

stages  beyond  them  in  ways  which  look 
toward  civilisation. 

These  Pueblo  Indians  have  half  emerged 
from  their  age  of  stone  more  by  borrow- 
ing than  by  evolution.  They  weave  crude 
fabrics  in  their  homes.  They  make  rude 
pottery  without  a  wheel,  and  with  more 
colour  in  its  decoration  than  the  cliff-men 
knew.  They  brush  their  hair  with  bunches 
of  stiff  fibre,  which  the  cliff  folk  would 
surely  claim  to  be  their  own.  Their  corn- 
mills  and  mortars  are  the  same. 

In  the  tiny  Hopi  houses  built  of  stone 
our  cliff-man  would  find  his  own  little 
chambers  with  stone  benches,  the  door  in 
the  ceiling,  and  plastered  still  afresh  when 
soot  grows  thick  upon  the  walls.  He  would 
find  blankets  made  as  he  made  his,  only 
instead  of  feathers,  it  is  fur  of  rabbits  tied 
or  twisted  on  to  cords.  He  would  see, 
could  he  but  wander  here,  the  large  as- 
sembly chambers,  mostly  sunken  in  the 


Cliff  Dwellings  133 

rock,  with  smoky  fire  in  a  pit  in  the  mid- 
dle, and  an  air-hole  in  the  wall  where  his 
own  more  purposeful  fresh-air  flue  was 
wont  to  be.  Peering  into  these  chambers 
he  would  see  the  men  now  making  or 
mending  garments,  now  gathered  in  seri- 
ous council,  now  absorbed  in  weird  cere- 
monial, or  through  long  hours  rehearsing 
stories  in  which  the  gods  walk  and  talk 
in  very  chummy  fashion  with  their  brown 
brothers. 

He  would  find  the  new  fellow  tilling 
just  such  meagre  fields  as  he  did  before 
his  work-days  were  ended.  And  if  he 
missed  a  certain  stuffy  snugness  and 
palpable  security  which  his  cliff  eyry 
lent,  he  would  realise  that  the  Hopi  man 
has  still  chosen  a  brave  vantage-ground 
atop  of  his  great  frowning  mesas,  which 
only  gunpowder  has  made  ridiculous  as 
natural  forts. 

So  we  find  at  last  that  our  wanderings  in 


134  tCbe  Great  plateau 

the  open  along  paths  which  lead  through 
no  academic  shades,  and  which  are 
lighted  but  faintly  by  the  torches  of 
science,  have  landed  us  safely  under  the 
wings  of  the  modern  archaeologists. 

And  now,  if  still  one  linger  on  among 
the  Hopi — the  "peaceful  folks,'  they 
call  themselves — and  can  enter  a  little 
into  the  spirit  of  their  homely  lives,  he 
will  surely  realise  that  while  the  material 
things  which  the  old  "Cliff-dweller"  left 
may  furnish  clews  to  some  definite  con- 
ceptions of  the  outside  man,  there  must 
yet  have  been  something  spiritually  dom- 
inant in  the  silent  race  to  which  here 
among  these  simple  living  folks  there  is  a 
key.  The  visitor  will  soon  learn  that  into 
each  act  of  life,  each  thought,  and  all  tradi- 
tion is  woven  the  sense  of  intimate  rela- 
tionship with  potent  Beings  in  earth  and 
sky,  who  guard  and  shape  the  brown 
man's  destinies. 


Cliff  Dwellings  135 

So  one  can  be  certain  that  the  old 
fellows  on  the  cliffs  read  strange  stories 
in  the  lambent  stars,  heard  angry  voices 
in  the  thunder,  caught  whispers  on  the 
breeze,  and  took  all  that  life  brought  them 
of  good  or  ill  as  the  meed  of  gods  potent, 
familiar,  and  ever  close  at  hand.  One 
can  be  certain,  too,  that  wiien  in  the  old 
days  the  stars  peeped  into  the  smoky  little 
dungeons  perched  along  the  cliffs,  they 
saw  intent  dusky  circles  listening  hour 
after  hour  to  strange  stories  of  the  Pre- 
sences which  rule  the  world,  and  to 
quaint,  endless  myths  which  the  old  men 
passed  on,  a  sacred  legacy,  age  after 
age. 

And  when  one  turns  homeward,  un- 
willing as  a  school-boy  bidden  to  his 
tasks,  his  impressions  of  the  cliff -man 
and  his  deserted  homes  come  back  to  him 
linked  with  such  pictures  of  sky  and  air  and 
sculptured  hill  that  they  all  gather  at  last 


136 


Great  plateau 


into  a  memory  so  gracious  and  so  in- 
spiring as  almost  to  seem  woven  in  the 
texture  of  dreams. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PRIMITIVE    AMERICAN    HOUSE    BUILDERS 

WE  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter 
that  it  is  possible  to  construct 
out    of    the  relics    which    have 
been  preserved  in  the  graves  and  in  the 
deep  recesses  of  the  great  cliff  houses,  a 
fair  conception  of  the  cliff-man,  his  busi- 
ness and  his  arts.     It  may  be  interesting 
now  to  look  a  little  more  closely  and  in  more 
sedate    and    systematic    fashion    at    the 
houses    which    this    dusky    savage    built, 
especially  in  the  open,  and  to  see  where 
they  are  in  the  land  of  the  Great  Plateau. 
In  a  survey  of  the  widely  scattered  ruins 
of  the  south-western  United  States  which 
mark  a  prehistoric   occupancy  of    regions 

now  arid  and  mostly  deserted,  it  is  both 

137 


138  Ube  Great  plateau 

convenient  and  instructive  to  recognise 
large  natural  districts  corresponding  to 
the  great  drainage  areas.  Such  dis- 
tricts are  the  watersheds  of  the  Gila 
and  its  tributaries,  of  the  Little  Colo- 
rado, of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  of  the  Rio 
San  Juan.  These  are  indicated  on  the 
map. 

A  few  ruins  are  scattered  along  the 
Kanab  and  the  Virgen  rivers,  which  enter 
the  Colorado  from  the  west,  and  a  few 
along  the  borders  of  the  great  Colorado  and 
its  mighty  Canyon.  Many  of  the  most 
primitive  and  apparently  oldest  types 
of  ruins  are  found  in  the  San  Juan  water- 
shed, especially  north  of  the  river  in 
south-eastern  Utah  and  the  adjacent  corner 
of  Colorado.  In  the  Rio  Grande  groups  and 

/ 

in  the  valleys  of  the  Little  Colorado  and  the 
Gila  and  their  tributaries,  the  older  ruins 
are  scattered  among  those  of  a  later 
period,  some  of  the  latter  being  prehistoric, 


primitive  Ibouse  JSuilbers       139 

others  historic,  with  traces  of  the  Spaniards 
here  and  there. 

The  ruins  of  the  Upper  Gila  and  Salt 
River  in  Arizona  have  not  been  carefully 
explored,  nor  have  those  which  dot  the 
country  reaching  into  Mexico. 

The  ruins  in  each  of  these  districts 
are  marked  by  peculiarities  of  construction 
and  grouping,  by  apparent  differences  in 
age,  and  by  types  of  pottery,  fabrics,  and 
utensils,  all  of  which  appear  to  be  of  con- 
siderable significance  in  the  attempt  to 
characterise  these  early  American  Indians 
and  to  trace  the  lines  of  their  relationship 
to  one  another  and  to  existing  tribes. 
When  each  of  these  districts  shall  have 
been  carefully  studied  and  compared 
and  not  until  then,  will  the  data  be  at 
hand  for  wide  generalisations  regarding 
the  origin,  relationships,  and  period  of 
occupancy  of  these  house-building  people. 

The   early   explorers  of  the  South-west 


140  Ube  Great  plateau 

country  were  much  more  impressed  with 
the  ruins  which  they  found  perched  upon 
the  ledges  of  the  cliffs  than  with  the 
stone  heaps  and  fragments  of  standing 
walls  in  the  open  country.  The  cliff 
houses  appealed  then  as  now  more  strongly 
to  the  imagination,  and  as  is  natural 
from  their  more  sheltered  position,  they 
are  usually  in  better  preservation.  The 
early  conception  of  them  as  defensive 
homes  and  fortresses  and  as  the  scenes  of 
savage  warfare,  lent  also  a  touch  of  the 
dramatic  to  the  unknown  story  of  these 
house-makers. 

But  after  all  the  open  ruins  are  far 
more  numerous  than  are  the  cliff  houses, 
not  only  on  the  Great  Plateau  but  on  its 
eastern  and  western  borders  and  in  the 
land  which  stretches  away  into  Mexico. 
Open  ruins  are  almost  always  to  be  found 
at  no  great  distance  from  the  cliff  houses 
and  as  the  relics  from  both  have  been 


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primitive  tbouse  Builders 


gathered  for  comparative  study  it  has  be- 
come clear  that  the  "  Cliff-dweller  "  did  not 
always  dwell  on  the  cliffs,  that  his  houses 
on  the  ledges  were  not  usually  forts,  and 
that  in  many  instances  at  least  he  built 
under  the  overhanging  rocks  or  in  the 
depths  of  the  caverns  simply  because  in  such 
places  he  found  a  house  half  made  already. 

While,  therefore,  it  is  sometimes  con- 
venient to  speak  of  "valley  dwellings," 
mesa  dwellings,"  "  cliff  dwellings,"  and 
cave  dwellings,"  there  appears  to  be  no 
reason  for  believing  that  these  distinctions 
are  of  deeper  significance  than  marks  of  an 
adaptation  to  their  environment  of  a 
house-building  people  lingering  in  the  higher 
stages  of  savagery.  Thus  the  prehistoric 
house-building  Indian  of  the  south-west 
dwelt  on  the  cliff  or  on  the  plains  as  was 
most  expedient,  but  we  choose  to  name 
him  the  "Cliff-dweller'  after  his  most 
picturesque  election. 


1 1 


t  4 


142  Ube  Oreat  plateau 

In  the  northern  part  of  the  great  ruin 
area  the  building  material  was  largely 
stone,  either  trimmed  stone  or  boulders, 
depending  upon  the  most  available  source. 
These  were  laid  in  adobe  mortar.  In 
the  southern  districts  many  of  the  build- 
ings were  made  largely  or  wholly  of 
adobe. 

There  is  no  reason  for  believing  that 
the  number  of  ruins  in  any  district  affords 
an  exact  indication  of  the  populousness. 
of  the  region  at  any  one  time,  because  the 
present  condition  of  the  ruins  seems  to 
point  to  very  great  differences  in  age. 
Thus,  some  of  the  houses,  even  though 
standing  in  exposed  situations  on  the 
storm-swept  summits  of  the  mesas,  show 
still  the  weathered  roof  and  floor  timbers 
either  in  place  or  fallen  in  upon  the  shat- 
tered walls;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
many  of  the  ruins  near  by  are  reduced  to 
formless  heaps,  and  are  covered  deep  with 


primitive  fbouse  JSuflfcers       143 

the  wear  and  weather  of  the  stones  and 
by  the  drift  of  the  sand-laden  winds. 

Furthermore,  excavations  which  have 
been  made  in  several  places  show  that 
buildings,  themselves  of  great  age,  have 
been  made  on  the  top  of  still  older  struc- 
tures. Finally,  distinctly  different  struc- 
tural types  of  buildings  may  be  found  in 
associated  groups,  which  points  to  a  long 
or  an  interrupted  occupancy  of  the  site. 

The  attempt  to  establish  typical  archi- 
tectural forms  in  the  buildings  of  these 
ancient  people  is  beset  with  practical 
difficulties,  owing  to  the  frequent  special 
adaptation  in  material  and  in  form  to 
particular  situations  as  well  as  to  the 
skilful  incorporation  of  natural  objects, 
such  as  caves,  benches,  cliffs,  and  fallen 
rocks,  into  the  structure  of  the  buildings. 

One  may,  however,  conveniently  place 
in  a  class  together  those  ruins  which  stand 
in  the  open,  either  in  the  valley  bottoms 


144  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

or  upon  the  mesas.  These  open  ruins  fall 
naturally  into  four  groups:  First,  small 
isolated  or  clustered  houses  or  pueblos, 
each  conforming  to  a  distinct  primitive 
type;  second,  irregular  and  often  rambling 
groups  or  clusters  of  houses,  usually 
adapted  in  form  and  position  to  peculiar- 
ities of  their  situation,  such  as  the  heads 
of  gulches,  the  brinks  or  slopes  of  canyons, 
the  tops  of  rocks  or  buttes,  etc. ;  third, 
towers  and  other  isolated  structures  usu- 
ally standing  alone  and  frequently  com- 
manding wide  outlooks;  fourth,  large 
communal  pueblos  forming  compact,  many 
roomed  buildings. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  convenient  to 
bring  together  in  a  second  class  those 
ruins  which  are  more  or  less  protected  by 
their  situation  in  shallow  natural  recesses 
or  caves  or  upon  overhung  benches  on 
the  faces  of  the  cliffs.  Such  ruins  may 
stand  singly  or  in  small  clusters  or  may 


primitive  fbouse  JSuilbers      145 

be  massed  to  form  communal  dwellings 
of  considerable  size.  The  houses  of  this 
group  are  commonly  called  ''cliff  dwell- 
ings. " 

The  so  called  :'cave  dwellings'  are 
artificial  caves  dug  out  of  soft  rock.  The 
caves  often  formed  only  a  part  of 
the  dwelling,  being  frequently  in  com- 
munication, through  narrow  doorways, 
with  stone  structures  built  against  the 
faces  of  the  soft  cliffs  in  which  the  caves 
were  dug. 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  these  types 
of  ruins  a  little  more  in  detail. 

The  writer  has  spent  the  summers  of 
several  years  in  wandering  with  a  pack 
train  over  the  wide  realm  of  the  Great 
Plateau  and  the  adjacent  regions  where 
the  ruins  are  most  abundant,  locating  the 
various  groups  which  had  not  been  pre- 
viously described  and  comparing  the  var- 
ious types  of  building  and  forms  of  burial. 


146  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

Early  in  his  studies  the  impression  was 
gained  that  the  most  typical  forms  of 
buildings  were  to  be  sought  in  such  situa- 
tions as  offered  no  incumbrances  and  no 
adventitious  structural  adjuncts — such 
situations,  in  short,  as  are  found  in  the 
open  level  bottoms  or  on  the  approx- 
imately level  mesa  tops. 

It  was  found,  in  fact,  that  among  the 
smaller  ruins  which  stand  in  the  open, 
either  in  the  valleys  or  on  the  mesas, 
there  is  one  type  which  is  by  far  the  most 
abundant  and  widely  distributed,  especi- 
ally north  of  the  San  Juan  River.  These 
ruins  are  usually  fallen  and  are  often  more 
or  less  overgrown  with  sage-brush  or 
other  low  shrubs,  so  that  unless  the  walls 
are  partly  standing  they  form  irregular 
and  often  inconspicuous  stone  heaps. 
They  are,  however,  almost  invariably 
composed  of  three  elements — a  series  of 
chambers  forming  the  house,  an  estufa 


primitive  Ifoouse  Builders       147 

or  kiva  or  assembly  chamber,  and  a 
burial  mound.  Such  ruins  in  the  San 
Juan  district  constitute  at  least  nine- 
tenths  of  all  these  smaller  isolated  struc- 
tures. 

The  house  in  this  type  of  ruin  in  its 
simplest  form  consists  of  a  single  row  of 
rooms,  each  usually  five  or  six  feet  wide 
and  from  eight  to  ten  feet  long,  with  a 
straight  wall  upon  the  back,  and  a  short 
right-angled  wing  at  each  end :  the  whole 
forming  approximately  one  side  of  a 
square.  This  usually  opens  southward, 
with  an  estufa  occupying  the  partially 
enclosed  court.  The  ground-plan  of  this 
type  of  ruin  is  shown  in  the  accompanying 
diagrammatic  sketch.  Houses  of  this  type 
may  have  only  three  or  four  rooms  along 
the  back,  with  single  rooms  in  the  wings. 
Or  there  may  be  eight  or  ten  rooms  at  the 
back  with  two  or  three  in  each  wing. 
Frequently  when  there  are  several  rooms 


148 


Great  plateau 


along   the  back  there   are   two   or   more 
estufas  in  the  court. 


Burial  Mound 


Ground-plan  of  Primitive  House  Type. 

The  house  in  the  most  typical  of  these 
ruins  is  usually  carefully  constructed. 
The  outer  walls  are  from  ten  to  fourteen 


primitive  Ibouse  Builders        149 

inches  thick,  often  laid  up  with  two  rows 
of  stones  dressed  on  the  outer  and  inner 
faces,  the  space  between  being  filled  with 
rubble  and  adobe  mortar.  The  partitions 
between  the  rooms  are  usually  somewhat 
thinner  than  the  outer  walls  and  often 
consist  of  a  single  row  of  stones.  Small 
doonvays  frequently  lead  from  room  to 
room.  I  have  never  seen  openings  in 
the  back  or  sides,  nor  have  I  been  able 
to  determine  the  existence  of  doorways 
opening  toward  the  estufa.  The  entrance 
was  doubtless  from  the  roof  which  was 
reached  by  ladders.  The  roof  timbers, 
if  such  there  were,  have  wholly  disappeared 
from  these  typical  ruins. 

In  many  cases,  though  the  walls  are 
largely  fallen,  the  outlines  of  the  buildings 
and  rooms  are  readily  made  out,  or  are 
developed  by  throwing  off  a  few  of  the 
outer  fallen  stones.  In  many  instances, 
however,  drifting  sands  have  largely  cov- 


150  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

ered  the  ruins,  or  sage-brush  and  pinons 
have  grown  upon  them,  so  that  these  and 
soil  conceal  most  of  the  structural  outlines. 

The  estufa  is  uniformly  circular  and  is 
situated  within  or  in  front  of  the  court 
formed  by  the  wings  of  the  house  and 
which  looks  southward.  It  is  usually 
sunk  below  the  level  of  the  ground  surface 
and  largely  filled  with  earth  and  fallen 
stones  from  its  walls,  which  I  have  never 
found  rising  above  the  general  level  when 
the  ruins  are  built  upon  earth.  The 
estufas  are  then  shallow  circular  pits, 
deepest  at  the  centre,'  and  after  rains 
may  for  a  time  contain  water.  Thus  it 
is  that  they  are  commonly  called  reservoirs 
by  the  cattlemen  and  the  Navajo.  I 
have  never  excavated  one  of  the  estufas, 
so  that  I  know  nothing  about  their  depth 
or  internal  structure. 

The  burial  mounds  which  are  almost 
invariably  associated  with  such  ruins 


<U 

bfl 


bfl 


Cfl 


primitive  Ibouse  JButlfcers       151 

are,  when  the  surface  permits,  uniformly 
south  or  southward  of  the  house,  sometimes 
close  by,  sometimes  a  few  feet  or  yards 
away.  They  are  sometimes  very  large, 
occupying  much  more  ground  space  than 
the  ruin  itself.  When  not  washed  out 
they  usually,  though  not  always,  rise  a 
little  above  the  general  surface  of  the 
ground,  are  of  irregular  shape,  and  are 
more  or  less  abundantly  strewn  with 
fragments  of  broken  pottery.  The  soil 
on  and  about  the  burial  mounds  is  com- 
monly somewhat  darker  than  the  sur- 
rounding earth,  and  briars,  sage-brush,  and 
other  shrubs  are  apt  to  flourish  upon  them. 

In  earlier  days  the  seeker  for  hidden 
treasure  or  for  merchantable  relics  was 
wont  to  pull  down  the  walls  of  the  ruins 
and  to  delve  beneath  the  rooms.  But 
since  the  significance  and  constancy  of 
the  burial  mounds  have  become  generally 
known,  the  fury  of  the  pot-hunter  has 


152  Ube  Great  plateau 

been  largely  diverted  to  them.  It  is 
from  these  burial  mounds  of  the  open 
valley  and  mesa  ruins  that  a  large  part 
of  the  pottery  is  derived  which  is  con- 
stantly poured  into  the  bric-a-brac  and 
curio  market  through  ranchmen,  traders, 
and  professional  vandals. 

These  burial  mounds  were  apparently 
rubbish  heaps,  and  charcoal,  ashes,  bits  of 
bone,  etc.,  reveal  their  character.  The 
bodies  are  buried  at  various  depths,  from 
a  few  inches  to  three  or  four  feet.  Some- 
times a  slab  of  stone  lies  over  the  body, 
sometimes  not.  Usually  in  these  open 
burial  mounds  nothing  but  the  skeleton 
or  weathered  fragments  of  bone  are  left, 
together  with  one  or  sometimes  several 
pieces  of  pottery  buried  with  the  dead. 
Perishable  stuff, — grain,  meal,  fabrics,  etc. 
— such  as  is  often  found  intact  in  the  pro- 
tected cliff  house  burials,  is  rarely  recog- 
nisable. But  household  utensils  of  various 


primitive  Ifeouse  iflSuilfcers       153 

kinds  are  common.  The  pottery  is  fre- 
quently intact  and  close  to  the  shoulders 
or  skull.  But  it  is  often  broken  and  not 
infrequently  has  moved  in  the  earth 
several  feet  from  the  bones,  during  the 
long  years  of  burial,  doubtless  from  the 
action  of  frost. 

While  ruins  of  this  primitive  type  are 
most  abundant  in  the  San  Juan  watershed, 
they  are  scattered  also  through  the  valley 
of  the  Little  Colorado  and  along  the 
tributaries  of  the  Virgen. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  frequency 
with  which  in  these  primitive  abodes 
each  house,  be  it  larger  or  smaller,  has  its 
separate  burial  mound.  Sometimes  there 
are  scores  of  houses  scattered  over  an 
area  of  less  than  a  square  mile,  but  unless 
these  houses  are  definitely  massed  to  form 
a  single  building,  each  with  few  exceptions, 
has  its  own  combined  rubbish  heap  and 
mausoleum. 


154  ^Tbe  Great  plateau 

The  significance  of  this  convenient 
arrangement  must  be  sought  in  the  lore 
of  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  to-day  in  whom 
the  ties  of  family  and  clan  are  of  great 
importance  in  shaping  their  performances 
and  traditions. 

I  am  disposed  to  attach  considerable 
significance  to  this  type  of  small  dwelling, 
with  its  uniform  association  of  house, 
estufa,  and  burial  mound,  as  the  simplest 
expression  of  an  early  and  primitive 
phase  of  the  house-building  culture.  The 
character  of  these  small  ruins  as  types  of 
residence  was  overlooked  in  the  earlier 
studies  in  this  field,  and  the  significance 
of  the  burial  mound  was  not  recognised. 
When  receiving  special  mention  the  latter 
was  looked  upon  simply  as  a  rubbish  heap, 
strewn  with  broken  pottery. 

Variants  of  this  type  of  ruin  are  common. 
Thus,  there  may  be  a  double  row  of 
rooms  at  the  back  with  a  single  or  double 


primitive  Ifoouse  JBuflbers      155 

row  in  the  wings.  In  such  double  rows 
the  back  row  may  have  two  stories.  Or, 
these  structural  units  with  either  single  or 
double  rows  of  rooms  may  be  placed  end 
to  end,  thus  often  forming  buildings  of 
considerable  length. 

Sometimes  the  wings  are  prolonged, 
having  several  rooms  enclosing  a  square 
or  elongated  court  which  contains  the 
es tufas.  In  various  ways  these  structural 
units  are  frequently  placed  together  form- 
ing large  buildings  with  irregular  passage- 
ways here  and  there  between  them.  In 
such  cases  it  is  not  infrequently  evident 
from  different  degrees  of  preservation  and 
from  differences  in  the  character  of  the 
masonry  that  the  buildings  were  made  at 
successive  periods. 

The  next  best  defined  type  of  ruins  of 
this  class  which  stand  in  the  open  are 
those  which  are  built  around  the  heads 
of  rock  gulches  or  canyons.  The  shallow 


156  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

water-courses,  often  inconspicuous  upon 
the  tops  of  the  larger  plateaus,  are  apt  to 
break  suddenly  into  rocky  gulches. 

The  ruins  which  are  built  around  the 
heads  of  such  gulches  are  especially  nu- 
merous in  the  country  north  of  the  San 
Jtian  River.  They  are  always  irregular 
in  form,  often  composed  of  a  series  of 
isolated  chambers  or  groups  of  these 
around  the  brink  of  the  gulch,  and  not 
infrequently  extending  down  the  rocky 
slopes  or  ledges  toward  the  bottom.  The 
direct  line  of  the  stream  is  usually  left 
clear.  Not  infrequently  a  rude  stone  dam 
is  still  to  be  seen  across  the  shallow  sag  in 
the  rocks  above  the  ruins. 

Occasionally  there  is  a  shallow  cave 
beneath  an  overhanging  ledge  at  the  head 
of  the  gulch  in  which  is  a  spring  or  a 
water-pocket.  In  several  ruins  of  con- 
siderable size  built  around  the  cliff  edges 
at  the  head  of  a  gulch,  a  rock  wall  about 


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primitive  Ibouse  iJBuflfcers       157 

three  or  four  feet  high,  often  forming  a 
zigzag,  stands  a  few  feet  outside  the  line 
of  the  ruins,  partially  or  completely  fenc- 
ing them  in.  This  is  apparently  a  defen- 
sive structure. 

Towers  of  various  shapes  and  heights 
occasionally  form  a  part  of  composite  ruins 
of  various  types.  Isolated  towers  and 
small  single-room  structures,  often  com- 
manding wide  outlooks,  are  occasion- 
ally found.  Small  single  buildings;  large 
and  small  low- walled  stone  enclosures; 
square  or  oblong  box-like  structures  from 
one  to  two  feet  across  made  of  thin  stone 
slabs,  often  apparently  empty  or  some- 
times containing  a  little  charcoal,  are  not 
uncommon.  Here  and  there  are  rowrs 
and  clusters  of  thick  slabs  of  stone  set 
upon  end  without  other  apparent  associated 
structures. 

The  largest  of  the  open  ruins  are  in  the 
form  of  great  pueblos  or  communal  dwell- 


158  TTbe  (Breat  plateau 

ings  formed  of  a  congeries  of  rooms  some- 
times several  hundred  in  number,  often 
several  stories  high,  with  either  one  or 
more  courts  which  usually  open  southward. 
These  stand  in  the  open,  either  in  the 
valleys  or  on  the  tops  of  the  mesas,  and 
resemble  in  many  ways  the  great  inhabited 
pueblos  like  that  of  Acoma  and  those  of 
the  Hopi  group.  Such  are  the  ruins  in 
the  upper  Chaco  Valley,  the  great  ruin 
near  the  modern  village  of  Aztec  in  New 
Mexico,  and  the  so-called  ;<  Aztec  Spring 
Ruin'  at  the  foot  of  the  Sierra  El  Late 
in  Montezuma  Valley  in  southwestern 
Colorado,  and  many  others  in  the  valley 
of  the  Little  Colorado  and  its  tributaries. 
Some  of  the  latter  are  prehistoric,  some 
historic. 

Near  some  of  the  large  pueblos  burial 
mounds  of  considerable  size  have  been 
found.  In  other  instances,  however,  nota- 
bly in  the  Chaco  group,  the  situation  of 


primitive  Ifoouse  Builders       159 

the  mass  of  the  burials  is  still  unknown. 

Let  us  now  turn  briefly  to  the  ruins  in 
protected  situations  in  cliffs  and  first 
to  the  cliff  dwellings.  These  ruins  built 
in  the  shallow  recesses  weathered  out  of 
the  sand  rock  in  the  sides  of  the  canyon 
walls,  as  well  as  those  which  stand  upon 
narrow  ledges  overhung  and  in  part  pro- 
tected by  the  cliffs  above,  vary  in  form, 
size,  and  material  with  the  differences  in 
site. 

There  are  countless  intermediate  forms 
between  the  long,  high  shelves  upon 
whose  brinks  shallow  stone  cabins  stand 
alone  or  in  single  rows  to  the  shallow 
recesses  at  the  level  of  the  valley  bottom, 
in  which  time  and  flood  and  wind  drift 
have  dealt  less  kindly  with  the  old  habi- 
tations than  with  those  upon  the  higher 
levels.  There  is  almost  endless  varia- 
tion from  the  great  caverns  of  the  Mesa 
Verde  with  their  large  and  still  imposing 


160  TTbe  Great  plateau 

buildings  or  great  masses  of  fallen  walls 
to  the  tiny  recesses  with  scarce  foothold 
for  a  pair  of  rooms. 

The  belief  was  developed  early  in  the 
study  of  these  ruins,  and  has  since  been 
widely  entertained,  that  the  builders  of 
houses  in  natural  or  artificial  recesses  or 
caves  in  the  cliffs  represented  an  earlier 
and  a  different  phase  of  culture  from  that 
which  inspired  the  buildings,  large  and 
small,  which  stand  in  the  open  and  which 
are  necessarily  of  a  somewhat  different 
structural  type.  But  this  notion  is  not 
justified  by  the  accumulating  evidence  of 
the  essential  id  entity  of  the  house-builders' 
culture,  variation  in  type  of  structure  being 
clearly  accounted  for  by  differences  in 
local  environment  and  by  such  conditions 
of  change  as  might  readily  occur  within 
a  very  limited  ethnical  period. 

It  was  obviously  important  in  the  choice 
of  a  building  site  in  a  cliff  recess  that  the 


'  -       -   •* 


c 
U 


" 

i-i 

D 


•J-l 
OJ 


t/2 


<   I 


<u 


rt 


primitive  1bou0e  Builders      161 

slope  of  the  bottom  should  not  be  so 
great  as  to  render  insecure  the  foun- 
dations of  the  buildings,  though  in  many 
instances  this  difficulty  has  been  most 
skilfully  overcome.  The  overhang  of  the 
cliff  must  be  such  that  the  water,  running 
in  torrents  as  it  often  does  from  the  bare 
rock  surfaces  above,  should  fall  clear  of 
the  building  site.  The  roof  of  the  recess 
must  be  solid  and  not,  as  is  often  the 
case,  weathering  off  in  huge  blocks  or  in 
shaly  flakes. 

The  accessibility  of  the  site  seems  not 
to  have  so  much  concerned  the  builders, 
for  though  in  most  instances  there  are 
simple  and  natural  modes  of  access  even 
to  those  cliff  ruins  which  it  appears  at 
first  impossible  to  reach,  in  the  last  resort 
they  frequently  pecked  into  the  rock 
those  foot  and  hand  holes  up  the  steepest 
slopes  which  are  still  not  wholly  obliter- 
ated and  are  still  useful.  Finally,  it 


162  ZTbe  Great  BMateau 

appears  to  have  been  almost  indispensable 
that  the  chosen  site  should  have  a  south- 
ward or  at  least  a  sunny  exposure. 

When  all  these  factors  are  considered, 
I  think  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  will  be 
evident  to  one  who  travels  widely  in  the 
ruin  district,  searching  critically  the  cliffs 
and  the  walls  of  the  canyons  and  gorges, 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  natural 
recesses  which  are  accessible  and  are 
suitable  in  depth,  in  the  slope  of  the  bottom 
in  the  character  of  the  overhanging  walls, 
and  in  exposure,  are  now,  or  give  evi- 
dence of  having  been  at  some  time,  occu- 
pied by  buildings.  The  form,  number,  and 
distribution  of  the  cliff  houses,  then,  in  any 
region  is  strictly  dependent  on  its  natural 
features. 

When,  therefore,  in  certain  localities 
cliff  houses  preponderate,  while  in  others 
ruins  of  other  types  prevail,  justifiable 
inference  does  not  point  toward  different 


primitive  Ibouse  Builfcers       163 

stages  of  culture  or  periods  of  occupancy 
or  stress  of  circumstance.  It  simply  in- 
dicates that  in  one  case  the  weathering 
of  the  cliffs  has  led  to  the  formation  of 
recesses  adapted  for  building  sites,  while 
in  the  others  suitable  sites  have  not  been 
formed — either  because  the  dip  of  the 
strata,  the  character  of  the  rock,  the 
nature  and  rapidity  of  erosion,  etc.,  have 
not  favoured  the  formation  of  rock  shelters 
in  the  cliffs ;  or,  because  no  cliffs  exist. 

These  people  were  first  of  all  farmers, 
and  while  they  may  have  been,  and 
doubtless  were,  at  times  forced  to  main- 
tain defensive  homes,  they  wrere  clever  and 
sensible  folks,  who  were  not  averse  to  a 
house  half  built  by  erosion  in  some  shel- 
tered nook  in  the  canyons.  But  it  was 
after  all  the  arable  land  and  the  rustic 
tradition  which  largely  shaped  their  cus- 
toms and  destinies. 

The  so-called  "  Cave-dwellers  "  were  the 


164  ITbe  (Breat  plateau 

same  folk  as  those  who  built  upon  the 
ledges  of  the  cliffs  and  in  the  open  coun- 
try. Only  it  happens  that  in  a  few  places 
in  the  land  which  these  house-building 
people  called  their  own,  there  were  some 
soft  ledges  near  streams  and  arable  valleys 
in  which  it  was  easy  to  scoop  out  a  series 
of  chambers  with  their  utensils  of  harder 
stone.  Neither  in  time  nor  culture  did 
the  cave-man  differ  from  the  cliff-man, 
or  the  valley-man.  It  was  his  good  for- 
tune to  be  able  to  make  a  comfortable 
dwelling  with  a  little  less  skill  and  toil 
than  could  his  brothers  whose  lot  had 
fallen  on  different  geological  bottoms. 

The  most  typical  and  noteworthy  ex- 
amples of  cave  dwellings  or  cavate  lodges 
in  the  south-western  United  States  are 
those  in  the  soft  volcanic  formation  in  the 
narrow  canyons  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the 
Valles  of  the  great  Cochiti  Plateau  in  New 
Mexico,  now  within  the  Pajarito  National 


\ 


\ 


, 


o 

O! 


O     -= 


primitive  Ifeouse  Builders       165 

Park,  and  those  in  the  soft  sandstone 
ledges  along  the  Rio  Verde  in  Arizona. 

The  general  subject  of  the  water  supply 
of  the  early  inhabitants  of  this  arid  region 
may  be  considered  here.  It  should  be 
remembered,  first,  that  the  personal  re- 
quirements in  this  respect  of  these  people, 
as  of  their  successors  in  this  desert  coun- 
try, should  not  be  judged  by  the  standard 
which  a  more  advanced  culture  and  a 
different  climate  impose;  second,  that 
few  arid  regions  are  actually  as  devoid 
of  water  as  they  seem  to  be,  and  that  a 
long  and  close  familiarity  with  a  dry 
country  often  reveals  fairly  abundant 
hidden  sources  of  moderate  supply. 

It  is  the  failure  to  take  account  of  these 
important  considerations  which  has  so 
often  led  to  the  belief  that  in  the  time  of 
these  early  residents  the  climate  must 
have  differed  essentially  from  the  present 
with  a  much  more  abundant  rainfall. 


1 66  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

But  while  this  is  a  natural  first  impression 
it  is  not  sustained  by  a  careful  and  ex- 
tended study  of  the  region  and  the  ruins. 

If,    as    has    often   been   the   case,    one 
cherishes   the   notion  that  the  defensive 
motive  was  dominant  in  the  selection  of 
sites  and  in  the  construction  of  buildings, 
and  further,  that  these  dwellings  are  to 
be  regarded  as  largely  fortresses  which  were 
in  a  state  of  frequent  and  prolonged  be- 
leaguerment,  the  necessity  in  certain  in- 
stances   of    more    numerous    and    more 
abundant  water  sources  might  be  conceded. 
But    in    the    majority    of    instances    the 
defensive  character  of  the  sites  and  build- 
ings does  not  seem  to  be  at  all  obvious  nor 
the  evidence  of  frequent  sieges  at  all  clear. 

In  fact,  some  of  the  larger  pueblos,  as 
well  as  many  of  the  larger  valley  villages, 
are  close  beside  living  streams  or  sandy 
stream-beds  which  bear  abundant  currents 
just  beneath  the  surface.  Furthermore, 


primitive  Ibouse  Butters        167 

many  of  the  large  recesses  in  the  walls  of 
canyons  and  gulches  in  which  the  cliff 
dwellings  are  built  furnish  a  constant 
trickle  of  water  from  the  rock  strata  in 
their  depths — to  whose  action,  indeed,  in 
many  instances  the  weathering  of  the 
rocks  into  cave-like  recesses  has  apparently 
been  largely  due. 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  dry 
as  many  of  the  great  sand  bottomed 
washes  and  canyons  may  appear,  there  is 
along  many  of  them  a  steady  deep  flow  of 
ground  water  which  collects  here  and 
there,  where  the  rock  bottom  rises,  in 
great  underground  pockets  beneath  the 
stream-beds  or  valley  bottoms  and  comes 
out  at  times  upon  the  surface. 

The  ancient  resident  of  this  district 
doubtless  knew  as  well  as  his  successor, 
the  Navajo,  knows,  exactly  where  very 
little  digging  in  an  apparently  absolutely 
dry,  sandy  stream-bed  would  furnish  an 


1 68  TOe  Great  plateau 

abundant  and  unfailing  supply  of  water. 
It  is  illuminating  in  this  connection  to 
travel  with  a  Navajo  Indian  over  the 
desert  country  and  see  how  often  a  little 
scraping  in  the  dry  sand  which  has  blown 
across  the  foot  of  a  rock  ledge  or  has 
gathered  in  a  stream-bed  along  which 
you  may  have  been  riding  for  miles, 
desperately  athirst,  will  reveal  a  trickle  of 
water  running  away  just  beneath  the 
surface.  Many  of  the  old  springs  near  the 
ruins,  which  constant  use  would  keep 
open,  are  now  no  doubt  covered  with  sand 
drift. 

The  more  familiar  one  becomes  with 
this  country  the  less  keen  is  his  surprise 
at  the  occurrence  of  a  little  water  in  what 
seem  the  most  unlikely  situations.  This 
is  a  land  of  vast  erosion,  many  thousand 
feet  of  sedimentary  strata  have  been 
washed  away  over  great  areas  leaving 
the  edges  of  the  remaining  portions  widely 


primitive  Ifoouse  JBuilfcers       169 

exposed,  and  one  is  quite  as  likely  to  find 
a  spring  far  up  in  the  glare  on  the  face 
of  a  great  cliff  or  upon  the  top  of  a  towering 
butte  or  mesa  as  upon  the  lower  levels. 

Nor  need  one  assume  that  for  an  essen- 
tially agricultural  people,  as  these  old 
inhabitants  of  the  ruin  district  were,  a 
more  abundant  water  supply  than  now 
exists  was  necessary.  The  crops  which 
the  modern  Indian  secures  in  some  hot, 
sun-baked  sag  in  the  long  slopes  \vhich 
lead  down  to  the  dry  stream-beds,  and  the 
fruit  trees  which  flourish  upon  the  glaring 
sand-dunes,  indicate  the  presence  of  mois- 
ture in  many  places  not  too  far  beneath 
the  parched  surfaces  to  be  reached  by 
the  rootlets  of  the  meagre  crop. 

I  would  not  convey  the  impression  that 
the  ruin  region  is  well  watered.  One  who 
journeys  here  even  under  the  most  ex- 
perienced guidance  has  too  many  memories 
of  long  privation  to  be  easily  led  into  such 


1 70  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

a  belief.  But  there  are,  in  fact,,  many 
more  sources  of  moderate  water  supply 
in  all  the  regions  containing  many  pre- 
historic ruins,  than  from  the  general 
aspect  of  the  country  would  seem  possible. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  water  was  not 
abundant  is  evident  from  the  many  in- 
stances, to  be  everywhere  seen,  in  which, 
by  the  construction  of  small  reservoirs 
and  ditches,  by  the  damming  of  shallow 
sags  on  exposed  rock  surfaces,  by  the 
utilisation  of  natural  and  the  construction 
of  artificial  water-pockets,  the  collection 
of  rain-water  was  frequently  resorted  to. 

But  after  all  there  are  many  groups  of 
dwellings  of  considerable  size  and  many 
more  isolated  ruins  which  appear  to  be 
far  from  any  source  of  water  supply,  and 
here  the  probability  of  transportation 
and  storage  in  large  jars  so  frequently 
found  in  and  about  ruins  must  be  admitted. 

One  of  the  questions  which  we  are  very 


C/3 

J-, 


'J 

13 

r—* 
+-> 

'-4-1 

o 

1-4 
u 


primitive  Ibouse  Buflfcers       1 7 1 

apt  to  ask  a  professional  archaeologist  is, 
how  long  ago  did  these  people  live  here, 
And  it  may  not  be  unjust  to  say  that  the 
reserve  of  his  answer  seems  usually  to 
furnish  a  fair  clue  as  to  his  knowledge  of 
his  business. 

In  fact  some  of  the  ruins  in  the  Rio 
Grande  Valley  were  occupied  long  after 
the  Spaniards  came  and  show  distinct 
suggestions  of  their  culture.  Other  build- 
ings were  in  ruins  when  the  Spaniards  first 
passed  them.  Back  of  this  the  probable 
age  of  the  ruins  must  remain  largely 
conjectural  until  a  more  careful  and 
systematic  study  shall  have  been  made  of 
such  marks  of  this  early  culture  in  all 
parts  of  the  ruin  region  as  the  hands  of 
the  vandals  may  have  spared. 

But  the  well  preserved  condition  of 
some  of  the  older  types  of  ruins  and  the 
ceremonial  and  household  utensils  which 
have  been  found  in  them  would  not  pre- 


172  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

elude  the  conclusion,  should  this  be 
justified  on  other  grounds,  that  several, 
perhaps  even  many  centuries  have  passed 
since  this  special  phase  of  early  culture 
gained  a  foothold  in  these  austere  recesses 
of  America. 

Most  of  the  prehistoric  ruins  of  the 
south-west  are  given  over  to-day  to  un- 
bridled vandalism.  A  pot  or  a  skull  is 
worth  a  few  dimes  to  the  trader  and  a 
few  dollars  to  the  tourist,  and  so  has  been 
evolved  the  holiday  and  the  professional 
pot-hunter.  Everywhere  the  ruins  are 
ravaged.  More  is  destroyed  in  the  search 
than  is  saved.  No  records  are  kept.  But 
worse  than  this  the  Indian,  in  whose 
domain  are  many  of  the  most  interesting 
ruins,  has  learned  his  lesson  from  the 
white  brother,  and  has  learned  it  well. 

A  few  years  ago  the  Indian  stood  in 
superstitious  dread  of  these  ruins  and  of 
all  that  they  contained,  especially  of  the 


primitive  "focuse  JSuilbers       173 

human  bones  which  were  now  and  then 
washed  out.  So  potent  was  this  dread 
that  in  the  earlier  days  in  the  Indian  coun- 
try I  have  left  valuable  provision  and 
other  tempting  booty  for  days  together, 
piled  up  under  canvas  with  the  lower  jaw 
bone  of  a  "  Cliff-dweller,"  carried  along  for 
this  purpose,  placed  ostentatiously  on  top 
of  the  heap.  The  cache  was  invariably 
visited  in  our  absence  by  our  prowling 
brown  brethren,  whose  tracks  were  quite 
in  evidence  close  by.  But  I  never  lost 
an  article  thus  guarded. 

Now,  however,  all  is  changed.  The 
Indian,  particularly  the  Navajo,  has 
learned  that  no  harm  seems  to  come  to 
the  white  man  from  handling  these  ancient 
bones,  and  carrying  off  the  contents  of 
the  ruins  and  the  graves.  They  have 
been  employed  by  the  whites  in  ex- 
cavations. So,  at  last,  they  too  have 
begun  to  dig  and  devastate  on  their  own 


174  ftbe  Great  plateau 

account,  destroying  great  amounts  of 
valuable  relics.  I  have  learned  of  one 
instance  in  which  a  Navajo  has  gone  at  a 
great  burial  mound  with  plough  and 
scraper  destroying  many  valuable  pieces 
of  pottery,  and  securing  a  few  intact, 
which  were  sold  to  a  trader  for  a  trifling 
sum. 

Steps  have  already  been  taken  to  protect 
by  national  legislation  some  of  the  ruins 
which  lie  within  the  forest  and  Indian 
reserves.  But  the  country  is  so  vast  and 
lonesome  that  the  policing  even  of  these 
regions  is  very  difficult,  and  more,  much 
more,  must  be  done,  and  that  speedily,  if 
we  would  save  our  precious  heritage. 

It  is,  indeed,  but  broken  glimpses  of 
the  story  of  the  ancient  folk  which  are 
gained  by  gleanings  in  these  ruins  which 
there  is  not  enough  public  enlightenment 
and  interest  to  save.  But  when  these 
mouldering  relics  are  interpreted  in  the 


u 


primitive  f>ouse  JSuilfcers       175 

light  of  the  lore  of  the  living  Pueblo  Indian 
the  story  becomes  coherent  and  full  of 
significance.  By  and  by,  when  disin- 
terested intelligence  shall  more  obviously 
leaven  our  state  and  national  councils, 
the  story  will  be  plainer  and  richer  in 
pictures  of  early  life  in  America. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FORGOTTEN      PATHWAYS      ON      THE      GREAT 

PLATEAU 

THERE  is    no  chapter    in  the   story 
of  early  America  so  rich  in  adven- 
ture,   so    tinged   with   heroism,    so 
quaint  with  tales  of  the  chase  of  will-o'- 
the-wisps,  so  full  of  heartbreaking  failures, 
as  that  which  may  be  gleaned  out  of  the 
old   Spanish  records  of   the   early   explo- 
rations   of    the    plateau    country    in    the 
sixteenth  century. 

One  may  follow  to-day  the  trails  along 
which  the  loyal  subjects  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  plodded  in  the  old  days  out  of 
Mexico  and  back  again,  drink  from  the 

springs  and  water  holes  which  tided  them 

176 


patbwaps  177 


over  the  hot  weary  miles,  and  still  in  the 
crumbling  faces  of  the  cliffs  along  which 
the  forgotten  pathways  ran,  he  may 
decipher  the  rudely  graven  names  and 
the  meagre  stories  cut  in  the  idle  hour  of  a 
night  or  noonday  camp,  of  the  soldier, 
the  priest,  the  titled  officer  on  the  service 
of  God  and  their  gracious  Majesties;  to 
the  end  that  souls  might  be  saved,  new 
countries  explored,  and  incidentally  that 
such  gold  as  the  barbarians  possessed 
might  grace  new  coffers. 

Many  of  the  pathways  which  the  old 
Spaniards  followed  over  the  lower  seg- 
ment of  the  plateau  were  the  trails  of 
the  Pueblo  Indians,  and  back  of  these 
were  the  meagre  tracks  of  older  people  still, 
whose  quaint  picture  writings  in  shallow 
rock-picked  lines  upon  the  cliffs  stand  cheek 
by  jowl  to-day  with  the  inscriptions  of 
the  Dons. 

Some  of  these  ancient  pathways,  worn 


1 78  TTbe  Great  plateau 

first  by  prehistoric  races,  followed  by 
their  successors — still  barbaric  folk — and 
here  and  there  broadened  by  the  early 
Spanish  expeditions,  have  become  modern 
highways  or  waggon  roads  and  even  railway 
beds.  But  all  over  the  deeper  recesses  of 
the  plateau  the  ancient  trails  wind  still 
along  valleys  and  canyons,  and  over  the 
upland  summits,  turning  aside  to  springs 
and  water-pockets,  now  worn  deep  and 
plain  in  the  softer  rock,  now  faint  and 
grass-grown,  or  lost  here  and  there  in 
the  sand  drift,  with  no  hint  in  all  the 
great  sweep  of  the  vision  of  the  bustling 
creature  who  has  crowded  the  brown  man 
into  forlorn  corners,  and  only  now  and 
then  in  an  idle  hour  rides  back  through 
the  centuries  along  the  pathways  the 
old  fellows  wandered  on  foot  in  quaint 
procession  or  alone. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  it  was  the 
great  arid   plains  stretching   away  west- 


patbwaps  179 


ward  from  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri 
rivers  up  to  the  eastern  foothills  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  rather  than  the  moun- 
tains themselves,  which  barred  so  long  an 
exploration  of  the  mysterious  country  be- 
tween the  frontier  settlements  and  the 
far-off  Pacific.  It  is  equally  interesting 
that  these  vast  plains  together  with  the 
mountains,  through  the  long  periods  in 
which  fairly  distinct  ethnic  groups  of 
people  were  developing,  should  have  held 
asunder  the  two  great  classes  of  American 
aborigines,  known  as  the  "  Mound  -builders'3 
east  of  the  mountains,  and  the  "Cave-"  and 
"Cliff-dwellers"  west,  upon  the  plateau. 

People  wise  in  such  lore  say  that  these 
folk,  so  different  in  their  modes  of  life 
were  probably  descended  from  a  common 
source  far  to  the  north,  wandering  down 
on  either  side  of  the  great  plain  and  moun- 
tain barrier,  and  finally,  without  ever  inter- 
mingling, became  extinct  as  barbarian 


i8o  TTbe  Great  plateau 

types  before  the  Spanish  expeditions 
out  of  Mexico  ushered  in  the  historic 
period  in  mid-America. 

At  last,  however,  the  zeal  for  explo- 
ration and  adventure  among  the  pale-faced 
intruders  who  had  won  and  settled  the 
east  broke  across  the  barriers,  and  the 
tides  of  trade  and  emigration  swept  to 
the  western  ocean  in  two  great  divergent 
streams.  The  Great  Salt  Lake  Trail  fol- 
lowed the  Platte  River  to  the  north  and 
west.  The  Santa  Fe  Trail  bore  south- 
westward,  rounding  the  southern  spurs 
of  the  Rockies  into  New  Mexico,  whence 
the  way  led  down  the  Rio  Grande  over 
into  the  Gila  valley  and  so  on  to  the  coast. 

Thus  a  vast,  wild  region  behind  the 
mountains  which  makes  up  the  larger 
part  of  the  Great  Plateau  lay  long  undis- 
turbed between  the  two  active  routes  of 
far  western  travel.  Then,  and  it  seems 
hardly  credible  to  us  to-day  that  it  should 


fforsotten  ipatbwaps          181 


have  been  scarcely  four  decades  ago,  the 
pack  train  and  the  prairie  schooner,  the 
pony  express  and  the  overland  mail,  gave 
place  to  the  iron  highway,  and  steam 
was  king  along  the  great  transcontinental 
routes. 

The  Union  Pacific  was  first  to  link  the 
eastern  and  the  western  oceans,  and  fol- 
lowed through  long  stretches  the  lines 
of  the  Salt  Lake  Trail,  cutting  across  the 
upper  end  of  the  Great  Plateau.  Later, 
the  Santa  Fe  Railway,  following  the  line 
of  the  old  trail  as  far  as  the  City  of  the 
Holy  Faith,  pushed  on  across  the  lower 
third  of  the  plateau  into  southern  Cali- 
fornia. Other  railways  now  climb  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  skirt  the  northern 
fringes  of  the  plateau,  and  join  the  Union 
Pacific  in  Utah.  The  Southern  Pacific 
bears  away  south  of  the  plateau  along 
the  watershed  of  the  Gila  River. 

It  is  easy  to-day,  even  within  the  limi- 


1 82  tTbe  (Breat  plateau 

tations  of  a  summer  jaunt,  for  one  to 
gather  not  a  little  archaeologic  lore  at  first 
hand  and  revel  in  some  of  the  natural 
grandeurs  of  the  Great  Plateau. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  writer  in  this 
and  the  next  chapter  to  suggest  to  the 
transcontinental  traveller  how  by  not  too 
strenuous  excursions  from  his  route  he 
may  enjoy  at  least  some  illuminating 
glimpses  of  the  past  and  the  present  in 
this  austere  wonderland. 

Perhaps  the  best  place  accessible  by 
rail,  from  which  to  get  a  first  glimpse  of 
the  plateau  country  and  the  "  Cliff-dwell- 
ers "  who  once  flourished  there,  is  the  little 
town  of  Mancos  in  south-western  Colorado. 
It  lies  upon  the  very  border  of  the  Great 
Plateau  where  this  rests  against  the  slopes 
of  the  San  Juan  Mountains,  and  may  be 
reached  by  the  narrow-gauge  loop  of  the 
Denver  and  Rio  Grande  Railway  from 
Denver  or  Pueblo. 


forgotten  patbwass          183 

At  Mancos  it  requires  but  a  few  hours 
to  get  an  outfit  ready  for  a  trip  to  the 
fastnesses  of  the  Mesa  Verde,  some  twenty 
miles  away,  where  high  in  the  sides  of 
the  rough  canyons  are  perched  those 
largest  and  best  preserved  ruins  of  the 
"  Cliff-dwellers  "in  the  whole  country,  from 
which  in  an  earlier  chapter  we  have  formed 
a  picture  of  the  old  builder  and  his  homes. 

The  trails  are  steep  and  rough.  One 
must  sleep  for  three  or  four  nights  under 
the  stars.  But  blankets  and  provisions 
for  the  out-door  life  go  along  on  pack 
animals,  and  one  would  be  very  tender- 
footish  indeed  who,  man  or  woman,  could 
not  under  competent  guidance  make  the 
journey  in  safety  and  without  serious 
fatigue. 

A  trip  of  three  or  four  days  from  Mancos 
will  introduce  one  to  the  prehistoric 
ruins  of  America  in  their  most  impressive 
phases,  give  one  a  taste  of  life  with  a 


1 84  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

pack-train  out  in  the  open,  and  some 
glimpses  of  the  plateau  which  will,  if  I 
mistake  not,  be  memorable  wherever  and 
however  he  may  have  journeyed  before. 

From  Mancos  one  may  ride  westward 
half  a  day  over  into  the  Montezuma 
valley  where  just  at  the  foot  of  the  Ute 
Mountain — Sierra  El  Late — is  the  Aztec 
Spring  ruin,  which  with  its  multitude  of 
rooms,  some  of  them  still  intact  and 
unexplored,  is  an  excellent  type  of  the 
older  communal  dwellings  joined  to  form 
one  vast  stone  structure. 

For  those  who  like  to  brave  the  sun, 
who  do  not  shun  rough  fare,  are  not 
fastidious  in  drinking  water,  and  can  ride 
day  after  day  over  a  rough,  baked,  almost 
trackless  land,  there  is  a  vast  region  west 
and  north-west  from  Mancos,  reaching 
over  to  the  Colorado  River  and  beyond 
which  is  little  visited,  full  of  wild,  scarcely 
explored  canyons  with  many  prehistoric 


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ruins  not  mentioned  in  the  books,  quaint 
carvings  on  the  cliffs  and  far  outlooks  from 
volcanic  summits  and  from  the  rims 
of  lofty  mesas. 

One  of  the  most  noted  of  the  forgotten 
pathways  on  the  Great  Plateau  drops  off 
from  the  eastern  hills  at  Mancos  and  bears 
away  northwest  across  the  great  sage- 
brush upland  to  the  crossing  of  the  Colo- 
rado, far  above  the  head  of  the  Grand 
Canyon.  It  started  at  Santa  Fe,  came 
up  the  Rio  Grande  and  Chama  valleys, 
then  across  country  to  this  point.  Its  line 
is  indicated  on  the  map. 

Over  on  the  plateau,  a  few  miles  beyond 
Mancos,  the  old  trail  passes  the  Yellow 
Jacket  Springs  around  which  the  "  Cliff- 
dweller  '  folk  built  their  houses,  and  is 
to-day  just  the  narrow  meandering  track 
with  the  same  dreary  outlook  across  the 
wide  reaches  of  the  sage-clad  upland 
which  old  Father  Escalante  blinked  at, 


1 86  TTbe  Great  plateau 

as  with  Brother  Dominguez  and  a  little 
escort  he  wandered  out  from  Santa  Fe  in 
1776. 

They  were  following  the  line  of  an  old 
trail  to  see  if  they  could  not  find  some 
new  Indians  to  gather  into  the  fold  and 
a  new  way  to  the  missions  at  Monterey 
upon  the  Pacific.  They  roamed  the  coun- 
try to  the  east  of  the  Green  River,  north 
of  the  later  line  of  the  trail,  straggled  over 
into  Salt  Lake  valley,  and  got  down  off 
from  the  high  plateaus  in  Utah.  Cold 
weather  came  on,  and  they  all  got  very 
hungry  and  deemed  it  wise  to  go  back. 
But  the  stupendous  Canyon  of  the  Colo- 
rado was  now  between  them  and  home, 
and  to  retrace  the  long  route  by  which 
they  had  come  was  impracticable.  So 
they  peered  and  scrambled  about  the  cliffs 
along  the  gorge,  and  at  last  found  a  crossing 
and  won  their  way  in  a  very  demoralised 
state  to  the  Moqui  villages,  thence  along 


ffor0otten  patbwass  187 

an  old  pathway  past  Zuni  and  the  famous 
Inscription  Rock,  and  so  home  to  Santa  Fe. 

The  crossing  of  the  Colorado  which  they 
found  is  still  called  El  Vado  de  los  Padres- 
The  Crossing  of  the  Fathers — and  the  route 
which  they  followed  out  of  Santa  Fe  and 
across  the  plateau  has  long  been  known 
as  the  old  Spanish  Trail  to  California. 
It  crossed  the  Green  River,  worked  its 
way  down  through  the  western  reaches 
of  the  plateau  and  through  the  narrow 
intervales  of  the  Wasatch  Mountains, 
whence  it  bore  off  down  the  Virgen  River 
and  across  the  country  toward  what  is 
now  Los  Angeles  in  the  general  direction 
followed  by  the  new  San  Pedro,  Los  An- 
geles, and  Salt  Lake  Railroad. 

When  time  or  whim,  which  after  all 
should  have  a  good-deal  to  say  about  a 
summer  wandering,  bid  one  leave  Mancos 
for  fresh  fields,  he  may  be  impelled  to 
go  in  quest  of  the  Pueblos.  For  the  key 


i88  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

to  the  mystery  of  the  "  Cliff-dwellers"  is  to 
be  sought  in  the  Pueblo  Indians  who  live 
farther  south  and  east. 

If  one  seek  out  these  descendants  of  the 
cliff  folk  in  the  Rio  Grande  valley  above 
Santa  Fe  or  at  Acoma  or  Zuni,  or  better 
still,  at  the  Hopi  villages  in  Arizona,  he 
will  be  able  to  create  for  himself  a  con- 
ception of  the  old  "  Cliff-dweller,"  his  ways 
and  habits,  his  play  and  his  religion,  his 
utensils  and  his  homes,  which  will  not 
be  far  from  the  truth;  and  one  will  gain 
an  impression  of  barbarian  life  very  much 
as  the  wondering  Spaniards  saw  it  three 
hundred  years  and  more  ago. 

If  one  have  a  pack  outfit  and  loves  to 
wander,  the  most  attractive  way  from 
Mancos  to  reach  the  Pueblos  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  which  are  most  accessible  of  all, 
is  to  follow  backward  the  trail  of  Father 
Escalante,  across  the  foothills  of  the 
great  San  Juan  Mountains,  past  the 


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Pagosa  Hot  Springs,  down  the  Chama 
valley,  by  quaint  Abiquiu  to  Espanola  in 
the  Rio  Grande  valley.  Here,  close  to 
the  Indian  villages,  accommodation,  prim- 
itive but  sufficient,  can  be  found  for 
men  and  beasts. 

But  the  twentieth  century  offers  the 
alternative  of  steam,  and  one  can  reach 
Espanola  in  a  day  by  rail  or  he  may  come 
in  a  couple  of  hours  by  rail  from  Santa  Fe. 

The  Pueblo  Indians  of  the  Rio  Grande 
valley  hereabouts  are  simple  farmer  folk, 
clinging  tenaciously  to  their  traditional 
mode  of  life  in  adobe  houses  crowded 
close  together,  some  of  which  are  still 
entered  from  the  flat  roof  by  ladders. 
On  feast  and  dance  days,  gaudy,  fantastic 
dress  and  weird  ceremonial  betoken  the 
lingering  strain  of  barbarism  which,  though 
in  sight  of  the  railroad  and  in  close  touch 
with  the  white  man,  links  them  with  the 
days  before  Columbus  came  and  with 


190  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

the  spirit  and  aspirations  of  the  old 
fellows  who  built  the  houses  in  the  cliffs. 

At  Espanola  teams  can  be  secured  and 
competent  guidance  to  the  adjacent  Indian 
villages.  A  ramble  about  the  pueblos  of 
San  Juan,  Santa  Clara,  and  San  Ildefonso 
affords  curious  glimpses  of  a  phase  of 
rude  life  which  is  here  fast  passing  away. 

The  Spanish  conquest  of  the  Pueblos 
in  the  Rio  Grande  valley,  as  elsewhere, 
was  only  accomplished  through  the  de- 
struction of  many  towns,  so  that  none 
of  the  present  pueblos  are  prehistoric 
and  none  are  exactly  upon  the  old  sites. 
But  the  ruins  of  the  old  towns  are  accessible 
and  worth  a  visit. 

As  one  looks  west  from  Espanola,  he 
sees  close  at  hand  a  series  of  long,  tongue- 
like  mesas  ending  in  the  valley  and  sloping 
back  to  a  line  of  low  mountain  peaks. 
These  are  the  Valles  Mountains  and 
between  the  mesas  at  their  feet  are  many 


JForgotten  patbwa^s  191 

lonesome  canyons.  In  these  some  low 
green  trees,  a  few  lofty  pines,  grass  and 
cactus,  and  in  the  season  jaunty  flowers 
hide  somewhat  the  sandy  reaches  of  the 
narrow  bottoms  and  lower  the  glare  of 
the  bright  yellow  cliffs  which  shimmer 
and  scorch  in  the  sun  at  midday. 

These  vivid  cliffs  are  very  soft,  for  they 
are  mostly  formed  of  pumice  stone,  the 
plaything  of  some  volcanic  outburst  which 
has  deluged  the  land  hereabout  with 
molten  lava  and  reared  low  mountains 
over  the  site  of  the  broken  earth.  Often 
a  little  stream  gurgles  down  into  the 
heads  of  these  canyons  to  be  soon  lost  in 
the  sand ;  more  often  in  the  summer  they 
are  wholly  dry. 

It  is  not  because  they  are  picturesque 
little  canyons,  broiling  hot  in  the  midday 
sun  and  wofully  "shy'  in  water,  that  I 
invite  attention  to  these  recesses  in  the 
hills  near  Espanola.  For  we  are  now  on 


192  Ube  <Breat  plateau 

the  eastern  edge  of  the  Great  Plateau 
over  whose  whole  vast  extent  are  hundreds 
of  canyons  in  themselves  far  more  note- 
worthy. 

But  if  one  climb  for  a  few  miles  up  into 
one  of  these  canyons  just  above  Santa 
Clara,  he  will  presently  stand  face  to  face 
with  some  of  the  most  curious,  primitive, 
and  fascinating  deserted  homes  which  are 
to  be  found  in  all  America,  the  homes  of 
the  "  Cave-dwellers. t: 

In  the  fronts  of  the  winding  cliffs, 
looking  out  upon  the  little  valleys  at  their 
feet,  are  holes  of  various  shapes,  big 
enough  for  a  man  to  crowd  through  by 
stooping,  which  lead  into  cosy  little 
chambers  within  and  often  into  a  series 
of  these  clustered  around  the  opening 
and  all  pecked  out  of  the  friable  rock. 
Many  of  them  are  smoke-begrimed  still, 
in  some  mud  plaster  is  yet  clinging  to 
the  walls.  Small  cubby  holes  here  and 


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patbwaps  193 


there  at  the  sides  of  the  rooms  made  snug 
places  in  which  to  stow  away  trinkets, 
while  fragments  of  projecting  sticks  near 
the  low  ceilings  show  the  method  of 
bestowal  of  scanty  wardrobes.  A  few 
of  the  dwellings  have  a  small  smoke  hole 
above  the  entrance,  but  for  the  most  part 
the  door  is  door  and  window  and  chimney. 

The  vivid  picture  framed  by  the  rude 
doorway  of  these  rock  chambers  as  one 
looks  out  from  their  cool  recesses  upon  the 
hot  green  and  yellow  reaches  of  the  valley 
and  the  pine-clad  slopes  beyond  is  most 
attractive,  and  as  he  lingers  within,  loath 
again  to  face  the  ardent  sun,  he  is  ready 
to  concede  that  even  the  rude  lot  of  the 
old  cave  man  had  its  compensations. 

In  front  of  many  of  the  caves,  piles 
of  hewn  stone  and  small  timber  holes  in 
the  cliff  show  that  rude  stone  buildings 
once  stood  in  front  covering  the  doorways 

in  the  rock.     Pottery  has  been  found  in 
13 


194  ftbe  (Breat  plateau 

the  recesses  of  some  of  the  caves.  Stone 
axes,  arrow-heads  and  pottery  fragments 
still  are  plenty  along  the  foot  of  the  cliffs, 
while  picture-writing  in  the  faces  of  the 
rocks  is  plain  and  frequent. 

The  swarthy  fellows  down  here  in  the 
valley  of  the  Rio  Grande  unfold  to-day 
the  tradition  that  it  was  their  people, 
the  Cochiti,  who  long  ago  in  the  stress  of 
conflict  with  alien  tribes  were  forced  again 
and  again  to  seek  these  fastnesses  and 
make  shift  to  carve  a  shelter  in  the  cliffs. 
The  pottery,  the  utensils,  the  masonry, 
and  the  pictographs  upon  the  rocks  con- 
firm the  story  which  science  has  framed 
from  the  fading  memories  of  the  Queres. 

In  this  short  and  easy  excursion  from 
Espanola  to  the  cave  dwellings  of  the 
Puye,  now  included  in  a  recently  se- 
questered National  Reservation — Pajarito 
Park — one  gains  a  vivid  conception  of 
this  curious  phase  of  aboriginal  life.  There 


fforgotten  patbwaps          195 

are  larger  groups  of  similar  dwellings  and 
other  strange  structures  in  the  region 
immediately  south  between  the  Great 
White  Rock  Canyon  of  the  Rio  Grande 
and  the  mountains.  But  the  country 
is  wild  and  rough  and  rarely  visited  ex- 
cept by  old  Cochiti  veterans  who  now 
and  then  slip  away  on  mysterious  errands 
to  these  ancestral  haunts. 

Should  one,  however,  be  tempted  to 
explore  them  they  are  best  approached 
from  Cochiti,  whose  nearest  railway  point 
is  Thornton  on  the  Santa  Fe  Railway. 
With  a  pack  outfit  and  under  the  guidance 
of  one  of  the  old  fathers  of  Cochiti,  one 
may  seek  out  the  Painted  Cave,  the  ruins 
of  the  Tyu-onye,  or  the  Stone  Lions  of 
Cochiti,  and  scramble  over  gigantic  ruins  on 
the  mesa  tops  where  the  old  pathways  are 
worn  deep  into  the  rock  as  they  run  from 
ruin  to  ruin,  or  from  the  ruins  to  the  water 
sources,  or  to  the  places  of  the  shrines. 


196 


TTbe  (Breat  plateau 


When  one  gets  home  again,  he  will  prob- 
ably read  with  zest  that  curious  archaeologic 
novel  by  Bandelier,  The  Delight  Makers, 
whose  plot  is  set  in  the  recesses  of  this 
gashed  mountain  slope  and  deals  with 
the  loves  and  lives  and  customs  of  the 
quaint  old  people  who  have  gone  leaving 
their  stuffy  homes  to  silence  and  the  sun. 

From  these  upper  reaches  of  the  Rio 
Grande  valley  everything  gravitates 
towards  Santa  Fe  and  the  quaint  old 
town  with  its  squat  adobe  Mexican  houses 
elbowed  into  cramped  corners  by  modern 
structures,  its  old  church,  its  museum, 
and  the  least  imposing  palace  I  fancy 
which  the  country  boasts,  may  well 
detain  the  tourist  for  a  day. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ACROSS    THE    PLATEAU    BY    RAIL   AND   TRAIL 

THE  Rio  Grande  valley  lies  along  the 
eastern  border  of  the  Great  Plateau. 
The  traveller  westward  bound 
across  the  continent  by  the  Santa  Fe 
Railway  catches  his  first  glimpses  of  the 
Pueblo  Indian  villages  as  he  swings  from 
the  Gallisteo  beyond  the  last  spur  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  into  the  Rio  Grande 
valley.  Here  he  passes  close  to  the 
quaint  villages,  San  Domingo  and  San 
Felippe. 

From  Bernalillo  a  little  farther  on  one 
may  drive  up  the  Jemez  Valley  and  visit 
the  pueblos  of  Santa  Ana,  Sia,  and  Jemez 
and  the  interesting  old  ruins  on  the  hills 

about    them,    the    wreckage    of    Spanish 

197 


198  Ube  Great  plateau 

conquest  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But 
the  train  speeds  on  down  the  river,  the 
level  edges  of  the  plateau,  here  lava- 
capped,  building  the  western  horizon 
line.  The  Sandia  Mountains  cut  short 
the  vision  toward  the  east. 

At  Albuquerque,  the  last  town  of  con- 
siderable size  this  side  the  Pacific  coast, 
one  might  outfit  a  pack-train — a  stout 
buck-board  would  answer — for  a  journey 
of  several  days  up  through  the  valley  of 
the  Rio  Puerco  of  the  East  into  the  heart 
of  the  plateau  to  the  Chaco  Canyon. 

This  route  leads  along  old  Pueblo  and 
Navajo  roads,  past  Cabezon,  and  across 
the  line  of  the  old  transcontinental  trail 
westward  from  Santa  Fe.  It  is  in  part 
the  route  over  which  Colonel  Washington 
and  Lieutenant  Simpson  and  their  military 
escort  travelled  in  1849,  to  carry  an  ulti- 
matum to  the  predatory  Navajos,  dis- 
covering the  wonderful  Chaco  ruins  and 


Hcross  tbe  plateau  199 

the  cliff  houses  of  the  Canyon  de  Chelly 
westward. 

In  the  Chaco  Canyon  and  upon  the 
adjacent  hills  is  a  large  group  of  superb 
prehistoric  ruins  of  great  communal  houses 
telling  of  thriving  times,  of  skilful  builders, 
of  excellent  farmers,  in  the  old  days  when 
all  the  folks  were  brown  and  the  brown 
folks  owned  the  earth.  One  of  these 
Chaco  ruins  containing  several  hundred 
rooms  has  been  partially  explored  by  the 
Hyde  Expedition,  whose  invaluable  col- 
lections are  deposited  in  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York. 
There  is  accommodation  here  to-day  at 
the  trading  post  of  Richard  Wetherill, 
close  beside  the  famous  Pueblo  Bonito, 
one  of  the  largest  of  this  great  ruin 
group. 

The  Chaco  Valley  may  be  most  easily 
reached,  however,  by  team  from  Chaves 
or  Thoreau  on  the  Santa  Fe  Railway 


200  Ube  Great  plateau 

farther  west.  In  any  case  it  is  a  long  hot 
journey  over  a  rough  arid  country,  peopled, 
if  at  all,  by  Navajos,  and  should  not  be 
undertaken  except  under  skilful  guidance 
with  a  good  outfit  and  an  abundance  of 
provision. 

A  few  miles  below  Albuquerque  the 
railroad  passes  one  of  the  most  flourishing 
and  most  modernised  of  the  Pueblo  villages, 
Isleta,  leaves  the  Rio  Grande  and  enters 
the  plateau  country  bearing  west.  Pres- 
ently it  crosses  the  Rio  Puerco  of  the  East, 
so  called  to  distinguish  it  from  a  stream 
of  the  same  name  over  the  continental 
divide,  and  winds  up  a  small  branch, 
the  San  Jos6. 

To  the  north  rises  the  volcanic  crest  of 
the  San  Mateo  Mountain,  renamed  Mount 
Taylor  by  Simpson  in  1849  in  honor  of 
the  President  under  whose  administration 
his  explorations  in  the  plateau  country 
were  conducted. 


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across  tbe  plateau  201 

This  mountain  with  its  sharp  summit 
and  long  rough  spurs  standing  high  upon 
a  great  mesa  top  is  an  impressive  type  of 
an  extinct  volcano  with  hundreds  of 
subsidiary  outbursts  gathered  at  its  feet. 
It  was  long  ago  forced  up  through  the  pla- 
teau, deluging  the  land  for  wide  areas  with 
lava  and  thus  protecting  the  surfaces  at 
its  base  from  later  erosion.  But  the  floods 
and  the  weather  have  made  away  with 
vast  areas  of  strata  all  about  the  moun- 
tain, marking  its  borders  with  long  valleys 
edged  with  canyons  and  gorges,  and  now 
the  rugged  old  sentinel  stands  up  aloft 
looking  out  over  a  wilderness  of  barren  land 

The  summit  is  easily  accessible  in  a  day 
and  a  half  from  Pajuate,  a  small  Pueblo 
farming  village  at  the  eastern  base,  whence 
a  good  trail  leads  to  the  foot  of  the  summit 
spur.  Then  it  is  a  go-as-you-please  scram- 
ble to  the  top  which  rises  about  eleven 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea. 


202  Ube  Great  plateau 

Save  for  the  summit  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Mountain  in  Arizona,  I  do  not  know 
of  any  vantage  ground  from  which  one 
may  more  happily  than  here  look  over 
this  marvellous  land.  The  vision  is  in- 
spiring, and  if  one  be  new  to  the  allure- 
ments of  far  horizons  swaying  in  long 
fantastic  waves  across  the  hazy  reaches 
of  the  hot  south-west;  if  the  earth  he 
knows  has  not  dipped  her  cliffs  in  sunset 
and  set  them  in  lines  which  beckon.on  and 
on,  he  will  begin  to  realise  from  this,  as 
he  might  from  many  another  pinnacle 
in  this  lofty  wonderland,  that  in  spite  of 
its  austerities,  in  spite  of  its  vast  arid 
wastes  the  Great  Plateau  weaves  a  spell 
over  him  who  has  once  shared  the  spirit 
of  its  solitudes  from  which  he  can  never 
again,  nor  would  he  willingly,  be  free. 

San  Mateo  is  one  of  the  sacred  moun- 
tains of  the  Navajo  and  to  its  summit 
they,  as  well  as  the  Pueblo  Indians,  resort 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  203 

for  secret  ceremonies  and  especially  to 
propitiate  and  to  tell  their  needs  to  the 
Powers  Above  which  manage  rain.  I 
gather  from  hints,  particularly  of  the 
Navajo,  that  the  night  has  veiled  many 
a  weird  ceremonial  on  this  narrow  moun- 
tain top  which,  as  they  tell  me,  is  none  of 
the  white's  man  business.  In  fact,  there 
is  a  small  cave  or  pit  in  the  rock  on  the 
very  summit  of  the  peak  just  large  enough 
for  a  man  to  crawl  into,  with  four  deep-cut 
pathways  leading  a  few  feet  away  from  it 
toward  the  world  corners.  I  found  stuck 
into  the  rock-debris  at  the  sides  of  the  pit 
several  old  prayer-sticks  of  Pueblo  manu- 
facture, with  the  jagged  lightning  symbol 
cut  at  one  end,  the  other  pointed,  the  husk 
parcel  of  sacred  meal  with  which  they  were 
once  furnished  mostly  weathered  off. 

Just  at  the  edge  of  one  of  the  lava-clad 
tongues  which  the  San  Mateo  Mountain 
sends  off  into  the  San  Jose"  Valley,  the 


204  Ube  Great  plateau 

railroad  cuts  through  the  corner  of  the 
Pueblo  village,  Laguna.  This  is  an  inter- 
esting excursion  centre  where  temporary 
accommodation  and  teams  may  be  secured. 

The  Laguna  pueblo  is  picturesque  and 
rich  in  curious  phases  of  the  village  Indian 
life.  Here  may  be  seen  the  making  and 
decoration  of  pottery  by  hand  and  its 
primitive  firing  in  the  open  air.  But 
here  as  elsewhere  the  elder  pottery  makers 
are  fast  disappearing,  and  a  rougher,  less 
artistic,  less  attractive  ware  is  supplanting 
the  old.  Nevertheless,  here  and  at  Acoma 
and  Zuni,  interesting  jars  and  bowls  may 
now  and  then  be  found. 

From  Laguna  one  may  be  taken  in  a 
farm  waggon,  perhaps  by  one  of  the  Indians, 
to  the  quaint  Mexican  towns,  Cubero  and 
Ceboletta,  a  few  miles  away.  From  here 
also  one  may  best  secure  guidance  and 
conveyance  for  the  trip  to  the  summit  of 
the  San  Mateo. 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  205 

But  the  little  journey  from  Laguna 
which  above  all  others  will  be  memorable 
ends  in  that  fascinating  old  '  City  in  the 
Sky '  — Acoma.  It  is  some  sixteen  miles 
from  Laguna,  the  road  winding  along  a 
wide,  cliff-bordered  valley.  It  is  the  same 
old  town,  perched  upon  a  great  sheer 
walled  mesa  standing  high  out  of  the 
valley  bottom,  which  the  Spaniards  found 
as  they  came  floundering  through  the 
sand  and  scrambling  over  the  rocks  from 
Cibola,  eager  for  gold,  in  1540.  Except 
for  the  far-away  Hopi  villages,  it  is  the 
most  primitive  and  impressive  of  the 
pueblos. 

Acoma  has  been  most  vividly  described 
and  its  stories  and  legends  rehearsed  by 
Lummis  who  knows  it  and  its  people  well. 
And  if  one  has  read,  as  he  who  travels  in 
this  south-west  country  should,  his  Spanish 
Pioneers,  Strange  Corners  of  our  Country, 
and  the  Land  of  Poco  Tiempo,  the  ride  up 


206  ZTbe  (Breat  plateau 

the  valley  past  the  Enchanted  Mesa,  the 
unfolding  of  this  wonderful  old  town,  the 
glimpses  of  its  quaint  folk  caught  as  you 
pass  round  the  foot  of  the  mesa,  climb 
the  ancient  trail  to  the  summit  and  wander 
among  the  houses,  will  frame  a  memory 
which  will  seem  no  part  of  the  land  and 
century  you  know. 

As  the  necessity  for  protection  has 
disappeared,  the  Acoma  people,  as  is  the 
case  of  other  Pueblos  whose  old  towns 
stand  on  defensive  sites,  have  gradually 
built  summer  homes  nearer  their  farms, 
so  that  the  visitor  to  Acoma  in  the  hot 
season  will  find  many  of  the  houses  closed. 
But  enough  of  the  people  are  always 
there  to  interest  the  stranger  and,  it  may 
be  added,  to  be  interested  in  him. 

If  one  can  so  time  his  journey  as  to  be 
at  hand  when  the  harvest  dance  is  held 
in  early  September,  the  people  will  all  be 
there  and  the  quaint  life,  the  weird  cere- 


Heroes  tbe  plateau  207 

monial,  and  the  festive  spirit  of  the  hour 
will  reveal  old  Acoma  at  its  best. 

One  can  drive  to  Acoma  from  Laguna, 
wander  for  two  or  three  hours  through 
the  town,  and  return  the  same  evening. 
But  it  is  better  to  stay  over  for  a  night. 

The  sunset  hour  at  Acoma  with  the 
exquisite  far  outlooks  upon  valley  and 
mesa  and  mountain;  the  processions  of 
quaintly  clad  women  bringing  water  in 
great  handsome  jars  poised  upon  their 
heads;  the  musical  call  of  the  town  crier 
as  from  an  housetop  he  issues  some  order 
of  the  Governor,  some  plan  for  the  mor- 
row's work,  some  announcement  of  cere- 
monial to  be  set  afoot;  the  quaint  home 
groups  which  gather  on  the  housetops  at 
dusk  laughing  and  chatting  or  calling 
from  house  to  house  the  gossip  of  the  day ; 
a  dusky  mother  crooning  to  her  babe; 
a  weird  song  caught  from  group  to  group 
and  floating  off  into  the  valley ;  the  glow 


208  Ube  (Breat  plateau 

of  the  lines  of  bake-ovens  along  the  streets 
as  night  falls;  the  gleaming  smoky  heaps 
in  which  pottery  is  slowly  firing  under  the 
watchful  ministrations  of  old  women  gath- 
ered close  about  them;  then  the  great 
silences  of  the  night  up  on  this  towering 
rock  close  under  the  stars — these,  and  the 
stir  of  the  new  day  as  the  early  sun  flashes 
from  cliff  to  cliff,  are  all  impressions 
which  one  were  ill-advised  to  miss. 

Some  of  the  kindly  folk  can  always  be 
found  who  will  cheerfully  sweep  a  corner 
of  the  living  room  in  their  terraced  houses 
where  a  blanket  may  be  spread,  or  point 
out,  which  I  always  prefer,  a  cosy  corner 
on  the  roof  where  the  night  may  be  passed 
in  comfort. 

If  one  should  chance,  as  was  once  the 
writer's  good  fortune,  to  come  over  on  a 
feast  day  in  the  autumn  with  the  Padre 
and  hear  the  bells  in  the  great  church 
beside  the  village  peal  out  a  welcome  as 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  209 

the  watchers  on  the  cliff  catch  sight  of 
him  toiling  up  the  trail,  he  will  not  doubt 
that  the  little  French  missionary  and 
the  Church  which  he  personifies  have  won 
a  strong  hold  upon  these  simple  children 
of  the  south-west,  who  find  no  incongruity 
in  reverence  for  the  Cross  and  regard  for 
its  ministers,  and  in  a  sturdy  belief  in 
their  own  Powers  Above  and  an  attitude 
towards  nature  which  we  others  name 
pagan. 

The  Padre  is  coming!  The  Padre  is 
coming!  was  the  meaning  of  their  jubi- 
lant cry  as  they  crowded,  big  and  little, 
men  and  women,  to  the  head  of  the  trail 
to  meet  him.  The  Padre  had  the  best 
room  in  the  village,  the  whitest  bread, 
and  the  thickest,  blackest  mutton-stew. 
When  he  walked  about,  a  score  of  shrieking, 
giggling  brown  youngsters,  naked  or  clad 
it  matters  not,  pattered  at  his  heels.  He 
does  not  allow  himself  to  be  disturbed  if, 


2IO 


TTbe  (Breat  plateau 


as  he  celebrates  the  Mass  in  the  Church, 
some  of  his  restless,  inquisitive,  blanket- 
clad  charges  roam  about  the  altar  and 
finger  with  appreciative  mien  the  splen- 
did vestments  which  his  function  de- 
mands. 

When  their  turn  comes  after  the  noon, 
and  up  and  down  the  long  streets  between 
the  strangest  dwellings  in  America  the 
fantastic  procession  of  painted  men  and 
women  goes  shuffling  and  singing  in  the 
weird  harvest  dance  which  celebrates  and 
solicits  the  beneficence  and  good-will  of 
powerful  Beings  in  earth  and  air  of  whom 
our  Scriptures  fail  to  tell  and  for  whom 
we  seek  in  vain  among  mythologies, 
while  the  good  Padre  wanders  to  and  fro 
beaming  approval,  one  wonders  and  ad- 
mires. One  wonders  if  these  are  the 
people  who  used  to  stone  the  priests  and 
throw  them  off  the  great  cliffs  yonder; 
he  cannot  fail  to  admire  the  adaptability 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  211 

of  the  Church  even  in  our  day  to  unusual 
and  complex  phases  of  belief. 

As  one  leaves  Laguna  by  rail  going  up 
the  valley  of  the  San  Jose,  if  he  is  interested 
in  the  outlook  with  which  plodders  of 
many  sorts  and  many  centuries  along  the 
forgotten  pathways  have  beguiled  the 
weary  miles,  let  it  be  in  the  daytime, 
even  if  one  has  to  take  a  freight  train, 
for  just  here  and  for  a  long  way  up  the 
valley  of  the  San  Jose  ran  a  noteworthy 
old  highway. 

The  Pueblo  Indians  used  it  in  prehistoric 
times  as  did  no  doubt  the  earlier  dwellers 
in  the  cliffs  and  caves,  if  they  ventured 
so  far  afield.  The  Spaniards  came  this 
way  again  and  again  in  their  early  ad- 
ventures on  the  plateau.  Along  here 
came  Father  Escalante  floundering  wearily 
home  to  Santa  Fe.  Many  a  lonesome 
little  caravan  and  many  a  solitary  fortune- 
seeker,  his  pack  upon  his  own  back,  has 


212 


ZTbe  Great  plateau 


passed  this  way  on  the  long  journey  from 
Santa  Fe  to  the  Pacific,  dodging  hostile 
Indians,  hungry  and  bedraggled. 

Along  here  came  Lieutenant  Simpson  in 
1849,  homeward  bound,  after  his  long 
jaunt  into  the  Navajo  country  to  teach 
those  braves  manners.  Captain  Sitgreaves 
and  his  party  passed  here  in  1851,  by  order 
of. the  Senate  to  find  out  where  the  Zuni 
River  went  to.  Lieutenant  Whipple,  in 
1854,  laid  out  along  the  valley  the  lines 
which  the  railroad  was  by-and-by  to 
follow.  Tired,  worn,  and  ragged,  Lieu- 
tenant Ives  hurried  back  down  the  valley 
from  the  Colorado  River  in  1858. 

How  many  times  the  Navajo  have 
stolen  down  this  way  out  of  their  lairs 
among  the  northern  hills  to  plunder  the 
thrifty  Pueblos  it  would  not  be  easy  now 
to  tell.  Then  the  highway  grew  wide  and 
worn,  and  great  waggon  trains  from  Santa 
Fe  bore  around  the  spur  of  the  San 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  213 

Mateo,  heading  off  up  the  valley.  At 
last  the  noisy  trains  began  to  waken 
strange  echoes  from  the  mountain  flanks, 
usurping  the  choicer  places  as  the  nar- 
rowing valley  climbed  the  long  slopes  of 
the  Continental  Divide,  elbowing  the  old 
pathway  unceremoniously  aside. 

As  one  rolls  along  up  the  valley,  he  will 
presently  see  great  jagged  black  rocks 
crowding  close  to  the  rails  on  either  side. 
These  are  old  lava  flows,  one  from  the 
plateau  of  the  San  Mateo  on  the  right,  the 
other,  the  end  of  a  great  stone  river  which 
has  poured  out  of  the  earth  some  twenty 
miles  off  to  the  south-west  where  is  a 
beautiful  cool  spring  called  the  Agua  Fria. 
Down  it  came,  this  river  of  fire,  full  four 
miles  wide  in  many  places,  sluggish  and 
glowing,  cooling  as  it  ran  until  just  here 
where  the  railroad  skirts  its  gloomy 
margins,  it  grew  black  and  hard  and 
stopped.  But  as  the  molten  lava  cooled, 


6reat  plateau 


its  surface  was  thrown  into  wild  and 
forbidding  shapes,  black  and  sinister. 

It  is  shunned  by  man  and  beast,  this 
gloomy  streak  of  chaos  stretching  down 
from  the  Agua  Fria.  For  the  hoof  of  the 
beast  and  the  foot-gear  of  the  human 
venturing  into  its  recesses  are  soon  cut 
and  torn  by  its  jagged  edges.  One  old 
trail  goes  across  the  lava  flow,  formerly 
used  by  the  Zunis  and  the  Acomas  when 
they  traversed  the  country  to  visit  and  to 
trade.  But  it  is  hard  to  find  to-day  and 
it  is  wiser  not  to  try. 

Now  at  the  left,  the  country  rises  over 
the  long  timber-clad  slopes  of  the  Zuni 
Mountain  which  for  many  miles  shuts  the 
railroad  in  "against  the  northern  mesas. 

One  of  the  old  trails  to  Zuni  and  on  to 
the  Pacific,  now  a  reasonable  waggon  road, 
goes  across  the  mountain  ;  another  rounds 
its  southern  end,  passing  the  Agua  Fria; 
another  leads  our  way  up  through  Camp- 


Hcross  tbe  plateau  215 

bells'  Canyon  over  the  Continental  Divide. 
The  two  former  were  much  frequented 
trails  from  Coronado's  time  and  before, 
down  to  the  day  of  the  railroad. 

Straight  over  the  mountain  not  far  from 
its  farther  slope,  and  some  fifty  miles 
away,  is  the  famous  El  Morro  or  In- 
scription Rock  in  whose  soft  cliffs  are 
cut  strange  pictographs  of  prehistoric 
folk  and  brief  record  of  their  passage,  in 
quaint  old  Spanish  script,  of  many  ex- 
peditions out  of  Mexico  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries.  Nor  is  the  trace 
of  vandals  wanting,  who  have  not  spared 
to  efface  some  of  these  priceless  records 
of  real  men  that  the  names  of  miscreants 
might  win  enduring  shame. 

Noteworthy  names  are  here  inscribed; 
names  with  heroic  stories  clinging  to  them ; 
soldiers  of  fortune  and  of  the  Cross  in  the 
days  of  our  Pilgrim  Fathers.  For  just 
three  centuries  has  the  graven  record 


216  Ube  Great  plateau 

which  I  have  selected  from  my  photo- 
graphs for  reproduction  here  been  exposed 
to  the  sun  and  the  weather.  But  the 
shallow  lines  cut  in  the  soft  rock  are  still 
plain  as  the  picture  shows.  Founder  of 
colonies  and  of  the  City  of  the  Holy  Faith, 
governor  and  explorer,  Don  Juan  Onate 
passed  this  way  when  our  Pacific  Ocean 
was  just  becoming  known  and  was  called 
the  South  Sea. 

El  Mono— The  Castle,  as  the  Spaniards 
named  it— is  still  miles  away  from  any 
settlement  and  save  for  the  few  scrawls  of 
the  vandals  upon  its  base  there  is  nothing 
upon  or  about  the  rock  to  indicate  to  the 
visitor  that  times  have  changed.  Some 
bedraggled  emissary  from  the  Spanish 
Court  might  for  aught  that  we  can  see 
file  around  the  corner  of  the  cliff  yonder 
in  quest  of  water  and  camp;  still  seeking 
the  fabled  cities  of  Quivira.  There  is 
no  historic  monument  in  America  more 


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Hcross  tbe  plateau  217 

worthy  of  preservation  than  this  noble 
collection  of  autographs  and  legends  of 
the  early  pioneers. 

Some  large  ruins  crown  the  top  of  El 
Morro,  and  a  small  pool  of  water  is  often 
to  be  found  at  its  foot.  Altogether  it 
is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  camping- 
places  upon  the  old  pathways  of  the 
plateau.  It  may  be  reached  from  Zuni 
or  from  Fort  Wingate  in  a  day  and  the 
way  is  not  hard  to  find. 

I  wandered  once  across  this  way  from 
Zuni  with  one  of  the  old  men  of  the  tribe, 
hight  Mappa-Nutria.  A  manly,  genial, 
white-haired  old  barbarian  he  was,  who 
muttered  prayers  and  sprinkled  sacred 
meal  upon  the  ruins  which  we  passed, 
and,  stooping  low  the  while  above  the 
water,  with  much  mumbling  offered  to 
the  Spirit  of  the  Agua  Fria  from  his 
little  treasure  bag  small  pieces  of  irides- 
cent shell  and  some  excellent  fragments 


2 1 8  Ube  Great  plateau 

of  turquoise.  I  was  glad  to  have  so 
earnest  an  advocate  with  the  Powers  which 
kept  the  beautiful  little  spring  under  the 
lava  bed  wholesome  and  aflow,  but  the 
water  had  become  sacred  for  the  time 
and  while  to  drink  it  was  no  sin,  I 
must  perforce  go  one  night  with  unwashed 
face  and  hands,  for  such  use  was  not,  he 
said,  respectful.  I  feigned  accedence,  but 
tried  at  dusk  in  surreptitious  fashion  to 
rinse  my  finger  tips.  Old  Mappa  found 
me  out,  however,  and  gave  me  such  a 
spirited  wigging,  half  in  Zuni,  half  in 
Mexican,  and  all  mingled  with  vivid 
pantomime,  for  my  lack  of  reverence 
and  decency  towards  the  Powerful  Ones, 
that  I  was  actually  ashamed.  And  I 
think  if  I  had  been  possessed  of  them 
I  should  then  and  there  have  cast  some 
little  shells  and  broken  turquoise  into  the 
bubbling  water,  too,  in  late  extenuation  of 
my  fault.  But  I  came  in  sight  of  the  rail- 


Hcross  tbe  plateau 


road  the  next  day,  and  then  if  I  had  made 
the  offering  I  should  perhaps  have  been 
ashamed  again. 

Now  for  many  miles  the  way  of  the 
rails  lies  north  of  west  along  a  wide  valley, 
the  Zuni  plateau  still  to  the  left,  and  to  the 
right  one  of  the  most  superb  reaches  of 
stupendous  cliffs  which  the  whole  land 
affords.  Red  and  grey  and  brown  is 
what  one  calls  them  if  he  is  pinned  down 
to  words.  But  if  one  can  pass  this  noble 
palisade  at  sunset  coming  east  —  and  it 
is  worth  while  to  come  back  this  way 
for  this  alone  —  and  if  as  the  low  sun 
smites  them  one  shall  see  the  majestic, 
winding  faces  of  the  cliffs  rise  and  glow 
with  a  palpitating  splendour  almost  un- 
earthly, he  will  realise  that  one  more  link 
has  been  forged  in  the  chain  which  hence- 
forth shall  hold  the  spirit  subject  to  the 
matchless  beauty  of  the  Great  Plateau. 

The  traveller  by  rail  is  presently  over 


220  ttbe  Great  plateau 

the  divide  and  going  down  hill  with  the 
water  courses  which  lead  to  the  Pacific. 
The  great  cliffs  at  the  north  dwindle,  the 
Zuni  Mountain  falls  away,  and  the  train 
goes  thundering  down  the  valley  of  the 
Rio  Puerco  of  the  West. 

Before  one  gets  down  to  Gallup  in  the 
valley  of  the  Puerco,  he  must  make  up  his 
mind  whether  the  time  or  money  or  whim 
are  consenting  to  a  trip  to  Zuni ;  for  if  it  is 
yes,  Gallup  with  its  livery  stable  and  neces- 
sary outfit  is  the  best  place  to  stop. 

Zuni  lies  about  forty  miles  to  the  south 
of  Gallup,  over  a  fair  waggon  road.  The 
pueblo  is  in  a  broad  brown  valley  not  so 
picturesque  as  Acoma,  like  it  half  deserted 
in  summer,  with  a  type  of  face  and  form, 
a  style  of  pottery  and  architecture,  and 
hosts  of  superstitions  all  its  own.  A  group 
of  ruins  near  the  modern  Zuni  is  all  that  is 
left  of  one  of  the  famous  seven  cities  of 
Cibola  of  early  Spanish  days.  But  one 


across  tbe  plateau  221 

may  find  the  others  if  he  be  not  afraid 
to  wander  in  the  sun.  The  Zunians  will 
point  out  a  rude  pile  of  stones  a  few 
hundred  yards  from  the  village,  which 
is  the  centre  of  the  world. 

One  may  climb  the  rude  ladders  and 
wander  on  the  terraced  roofs  up  to  the 
fifth  story  and  look  across  the  shimmering 
valley  to  a  grand  old  mesa  standing 
alone — the  Thunder  Mountain  of  their 
legends.  The  visitor  will  be  welcome- 
doubly  so  if  he  discreetly  dispense 
some  small  offerings  of  sweets  and 
tobacco — to  the  snug  abodes  of  the  various 
clans,  and  may  gain  entrance  to  the 
gloomy  chambers  under  ground  in  which 
at  times  weird  ceremonies  are  conducted. 
If  one  be  missionaryly  inclined,  he  will  call 
upon  the  ladies  at  the  school  and  admire 
the  spirit  and  beneficence  of  their  work. 

One  finds  here  in  Mr.  D.  D.  Graham,  an 
Indian  agent  whose  example  of   honest, 


222  TTbe  <3reat  plateau 

vigilant,  and  sympathetic  administration 
offers  the  simple  and  effective  solution 
of  the  Indian  problem.  For  the  problem 
lies  not  so  much  in  the  Indian  as  in  se- 
curing and  properly  supporting  an  honest 
and  capable  representative  of  the  Federal 
Government,  and  for  lack  of  this  in  many  in- 
stances we  have  suffered  national  disgrace. 

One  may  ride  in  a  day  from  Zuni  to  In- 
scription Rock  along  the  old  pathway 
which  the  early  Spaniards  trod  and  return 
to  Gallup,  if  he  will,  by  the  way  of  Fort 
Wingate.  * 

When  the  wanderer  gets  back  to  Gallup 
and  the  railroad,  he  will  doubtless  be 
weary  of  the  rough  roads  and  the  ardent 
sun,  and  impatient  for  the  train  which  is 
to  carry  him  to  "  somewhere. '  But  before 
he  goes  he  should  look  across  the  narrow 
valley  to  the  cliffs  beyond  through  which 
an  old  road  leads  to  Fort  Defiance  in  the 
Navajo  Reservation,  a  day's  journey  away. 


o 

•<-, 


across  tbe  plateau  223 

The  old  army  post  at  Fort  Defiance  is 
now  abandoned  by  the  soldiers  but  is  an 
agency  for  the  Navajo  Indians.  It  is  a 
typical  frontier  military  post,  with  the 
little  houses  grouped  around  a  square, 
its  barracks,  its  stables,  and  now  the 
school.  One  would  not  be  tempted  to 
brave  the  sun  for  this  alone.  But  a  day's 
ride  beyond  the  post,  along  a  fascinating 
old  trail  which  in  its  time  has  seen  many 
a  quaint  procession,  will  bring  the  rider 
to  one  of  the  grandest  canyons  in  the 
whole  plateau,  next  to  the  matchless  one 
which  lies  upon  the  flanks  of  the  great 
Colorado.  It  is  the  Canyon  de  Chelly,  in 
whose  recesses  are  hundreds  of  ruins  of 
the  prehistoric  people.  A  few  Navajo 
live  here  during  the  summer  and  cultivate 
the  fertile  patches  in  the  bottom  which 
the  old  folks  owned  and  tilled  in  the  days 
which  are  forgotten. 

The  Canyon  de  Chelly  can  be  approached 


224  ^be  areat  plateau 

from  Santa  Fe"  or  from  Albuquerque  by 
way  of  the  Chaco,  along  the  old  trails 
already  mentioned.  I  have  come  to  it 
over  the  hot  miles  out  of  Colorado  and 
the  San  Juan  Valley.  The  easiest  approach 
is  from  Gallup  by  way  of  Fort  Defiance; 
but  if  one  be  in  command  of  a  pack  outfit 
the  trip  to  the  Chelly  is  worth  the  toil  it 
costs  to  reach  it,  whichever  way  he  comes, 
t  Again  aboard,  the  train  speeds  down 
the  Puerco  Valley,  past  Navajo  Spring 
which  has  been  the  scene  of  many  a 
rendezvous  of  Indians  and  of  white  men 
in  the  old  days.  Down  here  ran  the  old 
trail  from  Cibola  to  Tusayan — the  land  of 
the  Hopi — along  which  the  eager  Spaniards 
toiled  in  the  sixteenth  century,  hoping 
that  at  Tusayan  they  might  find  that 
golden  storehouse  of  their  dreams  which 
at  Cibola  had  faded  into  a  tangle  of  mud 
houses  with  vociferous  brown  folk  swarm- 
ing over  the  roofs  and  heaving  rocks  down 


Heroes  tbe  plateau  225 

upon  their  heads.  But  it  was  not  much 
better  at  Tusayan  whence  some  pushed 
on  west  in  quest  of  rumoured  giants,  but 
found  only  the  gigantic  chasm  of  the  great 
Colorado  from  which  they  could  not  even 
slake  their  thirst,  so  monstrous  were  the 
precipices  at  whose  feet  the  river  roared 
and  tossed.  Then  they  all  came  sadly 
back  this  way  to  Cibola  to  wander  off 
again  far  eastward  in  the  vain  quest  of 
cities  and  treasures  which  were  chimeras. 

From  Adamana  in  a  day  one  may  visit 
the  Petrified  Forest,  survey  noteworthy 
ruins  of  the  elder  folk,  and  see  some 
excellent  ancient  pictographs  upon  the 
faces  of  the  ledges. 

Presently  the  valley  widens,  the  country 
stretches  away  grey  and  hazy  on  either 
hand,  and  the  train  is  winding  along  the 
Rio  Colorado  Chiquito — The  Little  Red 
River,  or  as  we  now  call  it,  the  Little 
Colorado.  From  the  vicinity  of  Winslow 


226  Ube  Great  plateau 

one  may  look  down  the  valley  of  the  Little 
Colorado  across  the  forbidding  reaches  of 
the  Painted  Desert  to  the  brown  and  red 
buttes  between  which  a  way  leads  up  to 
Tusayan. 

The  Little  Colorado  winds  in  placid 
fashion  through  the  sand  for  a  few  miles, 
then  strikes  the  lava  flows  from  the  San 
Francisco  Mountain,  drops  into  an  unas- 
suming canyon  which  gradually  deepens 
until  at  last  it  is  a  straight  walled  gorge, 
less  than  a  mile  wide  at  its  rim  and  full 
three  thousand  feet  in  sheer  depth.  The 
adventurer  in  this  country  of  precipices 
and  gorges  gets  wonted  to  dizzy  trails  and 
shivery  depths  close  at  his  feet,  but  he  who 
without  flinching  can  peer  over  the  edge 
of  the  Little  Colorado  gorge  may  be  cer- 
tain that  he  has  sustained  the  supreme 
test.  These  lower  reaches  of  the  Little 
Colorado  are  most  conveniently  visited 
from  the  Grand  View  Hotel  at  the  Grand 


Hcross  tbe  plateau  227 

Canyon  along  an  old  Moqui  trail.  Many 
ruins  of  the  ancient  people  lie  in  the  Little 
Colorado  Valley  not  far  from  Winslow 
and  along  the  stretches  a  few  miles  north 
of  the  railroad. 

As  one  leaves  Winslow,  looking  out  of  the 
car  window  ahead  and  to  the  lett,  he  sees  a 
break  in  the  lines  of  the  buttes  through 
which  the  old  Sunset  Pass  Trail,  and  later 
a  mail  and  waggon  road  entered  the  great 
Mogollon  Forest  on  the  way  to  the  Verde 
Valley  and  the  country  beyond.  This 
old  highway,  like  many  another  which  the 
railroad  has  crowded  aside,  is  followed 
now  and  then  by  the  cattlemen  driving 
in  their  unruly  charges  from  the  forest 
ranges.  But  it  is  now  rough  and  over- 
grown and  the  great  pines  are  claiming 
their  own  again. 

Now  the  railroad  climbs  up  on  to  the 
mesa  out  of  the  valley  of  the  Little  Colo- 
rado, up  into  the  pine  forest,  up  among 


228  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

a  wilderness  of  cinder  cones,  to  the  foot 
of  the  grand  old  volcano,  the  beautiful 
San  Francisco  Mountain.  Here  the  homely 
little  town  of  Flagstaff,  in  the  name  of  the 
Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  to  which 
it  was  so  long  the  popular  gateway;  in 
the  name  of  the  superb  view  from  the 
mountain  top ;  in  the  name  of  cliff  dwell- 
ings and  cave  dwellings,  and  many  an 
alluring  forest  drive,  invites  the  traveller 
to  break  his  journey  westward. 

From  Flagstaff,  by  waggon  or  ahorse,  one 
may  cross  the  great  Mogollon  Forest 
southward  into  the  Verde  Valley  and  the 
land  of  the  Apache,  visiting  Montezuma's 
well  and  castle  and  the  cave  dwellings 
of  the  Verde.  Thence  by  the  old  Govern- 
ment road  one  may  cross  over  the  hills  to 
the  Tonto  Basin  and  the  curious  natural 
bridge,  and  so  back  again  to  Flagstaff 
another  way. 

An    old  waggon  road    "Beales  Waggon 


Heroes  tbe  plateau  229 

Road,'  straggling  westward  from  Santa 
Fe,  around  the  San  Mateo  Mountain  by 
the  Agua  Fria  and  Inscription  Rock  via 
Zuni,  Navajo  Spring,  and  the  valley  of  the 
Little  Colorado,  comes  close  to  the  railroad 
just  as  it  turns  the  spur  of  the  peak  to 
enter  Flagstaff.  Farther  west  it  bears  off 
to  the  right,  skirting  the  edges  of  the 
Coconino  Forest,  on  the  way  to  the  crossing 
of  the  Big  Colorado. 

Beyond    Flagstaff    the    railroad    makes 
its  devious  way  westward. 

At  Williams  a  branch  road  leads  to  the 
very  rim  of  the  Grand  Canyon  some 
sixty  miles  across  the  Coconino  plateau, 
where  are  hotels,  saddle-horses,  guides, 
and  all  necessary  as  well  as  many  un- 
necessary conveniences  for  excursions 
along  and  into  the  Canyon.  One  should 
not  permit  either  the  world,  the  flesh,  or 
any  other  potency  to  call  him  back  in  less 
than  a  week  from  this  inspiring  region. 


230  TTbe  Great  plateau 

Now  the  railroad  drops  comfortably 
down  from  the  plateau,  and  comes  at  last 
to  the  crossing  of  the  Colorado  River  below 
the  Grand  Canyon  where  the  sullen, 
muddy  water  laps  ignominious  shores  with 
no  suggestion  of  the  glorious  chasm  which 
it  has  helped  to  sculpture.  Then  the 
desert,  then  the  Garden  of  America  in 
Southern  California,  then  the  Pacific. 

But  the  most  interesting  excursion  of 
all  those  which  may  be  made  from  the 
Santa  Fe  Railway  as  a  -base  remains  to  be 
described.  It  is  to  the-  far-away  Hopi  or 
Moqui  villages,  the  ancient  Tusayan,  about 
one  hundred  miles  north  over  a  rough  arid 
upland  with  few  watering  places  and  at 

best  a  hot,  hard  ride. 

. 
Although  the  Hopi  Pueblos  were  among 

the  earliest  to  be  seen  by  the  Spaniards  and 
were  quickly  brought  into  nominal  sub- 
jection, they  maintained  their  isolation 
throughout  the  period  of  Spanish  rule  and 


Hopi  Folks. 

The  whorls  of  hair  at  the  side  of  the  head  indicate  that  the  wearer 

is  unmarried. 


Hcross  tbe  plateau  231 

it  was  not  until  the  explorations  for  the 
transcontinental  railroad  route,  midway 
in  the  last  century,  that  their  modes  of 
life  and  points  of  view  became  markedly 
modified  by  intercourse  with  the  whites. 
They  are  still  too  far  from  lines  of  travel 
to  be  visited  frequently.  The  result  is 
that  the  Hopi  settlements  of  to-day  re- 
veal the  village  Indian  in  his  most  prim- 
itive aspects  with  his  traditions  and  myths 
and  barbaric  ceremonials  but  superficially 
modified  by  ingrafts  of  the  white  man's 
point  of  view. 

While  traces  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  are  interwoven  in  very  complex 
fashion  with  the  religious  conceptions 
and  even  in  some  degree  with  the  primitive 
ceremonials  of  all  the  other  existing 
Pueblo  Indians,  the  Church  has  from  the 
first  secured  but  a  superficial  and  fitful 
foothold  among  these  people.  Within  the 
past  few  years,  it  is  true,  the  establishment 


232  TTbe  Great  plateau 

of  schools  and  government  agencies  and 
the  more  frequent  visits  of  the  whites  have 
profoundly  modified  the  dress,  the  material 
aspirations,  and  the  conceptions  of  the 
great  world  of  men  beyond  the  immediate 
vision  of  the  Hopi.  But  here  in  his  snug 
houses  with  their  terraced  stories,  perched 
upon  great  bare  mesas  is  that  by  which 
we  may  most  closely  link  the  present  with 
the  genuine  barbarian  of  a  high  order  who 
saw  the  coming  of  the  white  man  into  his 
contented  seclusion  along  the  same  old 
pathways  by  which  the  visitor  comes 
to-day,  straggling  along  under  the  cliffs, 
hot  and  dusty  and  athirst. 

The  Hopi  man  is  a  farmer  still,  but  is 
beginning  to  cast  aside  his  primitive  uten- 
sils for  the  white  man's  farming  tools. 
He  is  a  genial,  hospitable  pagan,  fun- 
loving  in  his  way,  loyal  to  his  family,  and 
closely  linked  in  every  act  and  purpose 
and  aspiration  with  potent  Beings  in  earth 


Bcross  tbe  plateau  233 

andair  and  sky  which  he  consults,  worships, 
placates,  holding  them  in  close  communion 
through  quaint  and  weird  ceremonials 
which  age  by  age  have  been  handed  down 
at  last  to  him.  His  women  folk  are  al- 
together not  uncomely,  the  youngsters 
just  gurgling,  playing,  laughing  young- 
sters, in  aspect  much  like  others  who  are 
white  save  for  the  accident  of  colour  and 
garb. 

While  the  relatively  unalloyed  traditions 
of  the  Hopi  offer  a  field  for  the  student  of 
folk-lore  among  the  Pueblo  Indians  of 
exceptional  extent  and  value,  the  ordinary 
visitor  touches  but  superficially  upon  the 
inner  life  of  the  people.  He  is  indeed 
constantly  impressed  with  a  mysterious 
underlying  current  of  life  and  impulse 
which  is  opened  only  to  such  as  can  win 
their  confidence,  understand  their  speech, 
and  are  trained  to  recognise  the  value  and 
significance  of  their  lore.  But  certain  of 


234  TOe  Great  plateau 

the  Hopi  ceremonials,  especially  the  so- 
called  Snake  Dance,  which  is  really  an 
elaborate  prayer  for  rain,  are  so  weird  and 
striking  that  for  several  years  white  men 
have  gathered  in  considerable  numbers 
to  witness  them. 

The  Snake  Dance  has  been  frequently 
described.  The  scene  at  an  absorbing 
moment  has  been  caught  by  Lungren 
upon  his  great,  well-known  canvas.  Photo- 
graphs of  various  phases  of  the  ceremonial 
are  abundant.  To  the  repeated  pains- 
taking observations  and  the  learned  treat- 
ises of  Dr.  Fewkes  we  owe  the  most 
comprehensive  exposition  of  the  weird 
ceremonial  and  its  lore. 

I  shall  not  here  describe  the  Snake 
Dance  nor  attempt  to  indicate  the  pro- 
found impression  which  this  relic  of 
barbarism  makes  upon  the  sympathetic 
beholder.  To  the  many,  the  appearance 
and  the  handling  of  snakes,  both  harmless 


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Hcross  tbe  plateau  235 

and  venomous,  in  the  culminating  phases 
of  the  intricate  and  prolonged  ceremonial 
is  the  chief  and  absorbing  attraction. 
But  to  him  who  has  come  to  know  the 
participants  in  their  daily  walks,  and 
realises  that  the  crude  barbaric  exhibition 
is  but  the  expression  handed  on  through 
centuries,  of  sincerely  cherished  and  pro- 
found religious  conceptions;  to  him  who 
now  and  again  as  the  strange  processions 
out  of  the  slumbering  centuries  unfold 
before  him  at  sunset  finds  the  eye 
wandering  out  upon  the  hazy  valleys  and 
over  the  quavering  uplands  under  whose 
sway  the  conceptions  here  dramatised 
were  evolved  or  fostered :  to  him  who  has 
grown  even  fond  of  these  children  of  the 
sun,  for  their  simplicity,  directness, 
and  familiar  intercourse  with  Beings  out 
of  sight  but  ever  close  at  hand  which  rule 
the  world, — the  Snake  Dance  ceremonial 
has  a  more  absorbing  and  abiding  fasci- 


236  ZTbe  Great  plateau 

nation  than  its  crude  dramatic  features 
can  awaken. 

There  are  seven  of  the  Hopi  villages,  and 
at  some  of  these  the  Snake  Dance  cere- 
monial is  held  each  year  between  the 
middle  and  the  end  of  August. 

For  the  journey  out  to  Hopi  and  back 
one  should  take  at  least  a  week.  It  can 
be  made  from  Flagstaff  or  Canyon  Diabolo 
or  Winslow  or  Holbrook  or  Gallup,  either 
on  horseback  or  by  waggon,  and  usually 
one  or  more  conveyances  go  from  each  of 
these  places.  Almost  all  of  these  routes 
follow  in  the  main  the  lines  of  old  Indian 
trails  and  lead  by  the  ancient  watering 
places  which  till  fifty  years  or  so  ago  only 
the  brown  man  and  the  Spaniard  knew. 
Agents  of  the  Santa  Fe  Railway  can  give 
information  regarding  routes  and  have 
issued  an  interesting  short  description  of 
the  Snake  Dance  by  Hough. 

It   is   disheartening   to   realise,    as   the 


Hcross  tbe  plateau  237 

thoughtful  visitor  to  the  lingering  remnants 
of  a  vanishing  race  in  our  western  country 
is  forced  to  do,  that  priceless  treasures  of 
folk-lore  are  each  year  slipping  away  out 
of  sight  forever  as  one  by  one  their  swarthy 
old  custodians  drop  away.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  general  enlightenment  among 
the  people  of  the  land  may  demand,  ere 
it  be  too  late,  such  liberal  appropriations 
for  the  maintenance  of  devotees  to  Ameri- 
can Anthropology  in  these  lonesome  fields 
as  shall  be  more  worthy  a  nation  so  great 
as  ours  and  with  aspirations  not  all  for 
material  conquest,  whatever  may  be  the 
apparent  leaning  of  the  hour. 

The  writer  is  certain  that  he  who  shall 
break  his  long  transcontinental  journey 
for  one  or  all  of  the  glimpses  of  life  and 
nature  on  the  Great  Plateau  which  these 
pages  have  aimed  to  suggest,  will  win  some 
lasting  and  inspiring  memories  and  a  deeper 
love  of  the  great  land  which  we  inherit. 


INDEX 
A 


Acoma,  205 
Adamana,  225 
Albuquerque,  198 
Aqua  Fria,  213,  217 


B 


Bandelier,  29,  196 

Bass's  Camp,  67 

Beale's  Waggon  Road,  228 

Bluff  City,  43 

Bright  Angel  Creek,  59 


Cabezon,  198 

Canyon,  Campbell's,  215;  Cataract,  40;  Chaco,  198; 
de  Chelly,  223;  Glen,  40;  Grand,  of  the  Colorado 
River,  42;  access  to,  37;  cliff-houses  of,  66;  des- 
criptions of,  62 ;  Forest  Reserve  of,  43 ;  geology 
of,  72;  hotels  at,  37,  67;  wanderings  about,  65; 
Little  Colorado,  226;  Marble,  42;  White  Rock  of 
Rio  Grande,  195 

Cataract  Creek,  66 

Cave  Dwellings,  145,  163,  192 

Cibola,  220,  224 

Cliff-Dwellers,  baskets  of,  123;  bone  implements  of, 
127;  burials  of,  150;  cave  ruins  of,  159;  character- 
istics of,  104,  129;  dress  and  adornments  of,  105; 
firesticks  of,  112;  homes  of,  96,  137;  land  of,  92; 
masonry  of,  108,  148;  open  ruins  of,  140,  146; 
pictographs  of,  115;  pottery  of,  119;  sandals  of, 

239 


240 


105;  stone  implements  of,  113;  towers  of,  157; 
utensils  of,  113;  water  supply  of,  165 

Cliff  Dwellings,  90,  137;  classification  of,  143;  van- 
dalism in,  172 

Cochiti,  194;  stone  lions  of,  195 

Coconino  Basin,  66;  Forest,  229 

Colorado    Chiquito,  42,  225 

Colorado  River,  canyons  of,  40;  crossings  of,  41, 
43,  187;  sources  of,  40 

Gushing,  29 


D 


Dandy  Crossing,  40 
"Delight  Makers,"  196 
Dellenbaugh,  60 
Dirty  Devil  Creek,  40 
Dorsey,  29 
Dutton,  65 


E 


Echo  Cliffs,  60,  68 

El  Morro,  215 

El  Tovar  Hotel,  37,  59,  67 

Escalante,  Father,  185 

Espanola,  189 

Estufa,  in,  150 


F 


Fewkes,  29,  234 
Flagstaff,  228 
Ft.  Defiance,  222 
Ft.  Wingate,  217 


Gallup,  220 

Gila  River,  ruins  on,  138 

Graham,  221 

Grand  View  Hotel,  38,  65,  67,  226 


241 


H 


Hodge,  29 

Hopi  Indians,  132,  230 

Hough,  236 

Hyde  Exploring  Expedition,   199 


Indians,  Apache,  35;  Havasupai,  35,  66;  Hopi, 
132,  231;  Navajo,  30;  Pah  Utes,  34;  Pueblo, 
26,  131,  132,  189,  231;  Ute,  34;  Wallapai,  35 

Inscription  Rock,  215 

Isleta,  200 

Ives,  212 

K 

Kanab,  53 
Kiva,  see  Estufa 

L 

Laguna,  204 

Lava  Beds,  213 

Lee's  Ferry,  41 

Little  Colorado  River,  225 

Lummis,  29,  205 

M 

Mancos,  182 

Matthews,  29 

Mesa,  enchanted,  206 

Mesa  Verde,   100,   159,   183 

Mogollon  Forest,  227 

Montezuma,  castle  and  well,  228 

Monument  Valley,  86 

Mound-Builders,  179 

Mountains,  Blue,  15;  Carriso,  155  Henry,  51;  La 
Sal,  15;  Navajo,  41,  68;  Sandia,  198;  San  Fran- 
cisco, 228;  San  Juan,  188;  San  Mateo,  200; 
Taylor,  200;  Thunder,  221;  Ute,  184;  Valles,  190; 
Zuni,  214 


242 


N 
Navajo  Indians,  30;  spring,  224 

O 

Onate,  Inscription  of,  216 

P 

Painted  Desert,  66,  68,  226 

Pajarito  Park,  164,  194 

Petrified  Forest,  225 

Pictographs,  115,  225 

Plateau,  Buckskin,  55;  Cochiti,  164;  Great  American, 
access  to,  8;  across,  197;  animals  of,  10;  camp- 
ing on,  22;  characters  of,  i,  14;  colours  of,  14; 
ethnology  of,  27;  forgotten  pathways  of,  176; 
formation  of,  4,  77;  fossils  of,  79;  Indians  of,  5, 
25  ;  mirage  of,  18;  mountains  of,  15  ;  railways  of, 
1  8  1  ;  settlement  of,  179;  showers  of,  19;  trails  of, 
180,  185,227;  travel  on,  9,  13;  vegetation  of,  2; 
water  of,  10,  21,  165;  High,  of  Utah,  82;  Kaibab, 
55;  Marble,  68;  Powell,  557 

Points:  Final,  Greenland,  Royal,  and  Sublime,  58 

Powell,  40,  45,  64 

Pueblo  Bonito,  199 

Pueblo  villages:  Acoma,  205;  Cochiti,  195;  Hopi, 
230;  Isleta,  200;  Laguna,  204;  Moqui,  230;  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  190,  197;  Zuni,  220 

R 

Rio  Grande,  ruins  in  valley  of,  138 

Rio  Puerco,   198,  200,  220 

River,  Colorado,  40;  Colorado  Chiquito,  225;  Dirty 
Devil,  Fremont,  40;  Gila,  139;  Green  and  Grand 
40;  Kanab,  138;  Salt,  139;  San  Josd,  211;  San 
Juan,  41,  138;  Virgen,  138 

Ruins,  protection  of,  172 


243 


s 

Santa  Fe",  196 
Simpson,  198,  212 
Sit  greaves,  212 
Snake  Dance,  234 
Spanish  Bayonet,  124 
Stanton,  45 
Stephen,  29 
Stevenson,  29 

T 

Thornton,  N.  M.,  195 

Thoreau,  N.  M.,  200 

Tonto  Basin,  228 

Trail,  Great  Salt  Lake,  180;  Old  Spanish,  185;  San 

ta  Fe,  1  80;  Sunset  Pass,  227 
Tuba  City,  61 
Tusayan,  224 
Tyu-onye,  ruins  of  195 


Verde  valley,  165,  228 

W 

Warner,  64 
Washington,  Col.,  198 
Wetherill,  199 
Whip  pie,  212 
Williams,  Ariz.,  37,  229 
Winslow,  Ariz.,  225 


Yellow  Jacket  Spring,   185 
Yucca,  uses  of  by  Cliff -man,  124 


Zum,  220 


"  The  best  work  that  has  appeared  on  this  sub" 
ject  for   a  long   time/'—  Nashville  American. 

THE 
MYSTIC  MID=REGION 

THE  DESERTS  OF  THE  SOUTHWEST 

BY 

ARTHUR  J.    BURDICK 


Octavo.     With  54  full" page  illustrations. 
Net,  $2.25.    By  mail,  $2,40 


Mr.  Burdick  brings  to  the  public  both  a  general  know- 
ledge of  the  deserts  of  the  Southwest  and  a  particular 
acquaintance  by  means  of  pen  and  camera  with  many 
of  the  most  unique  features  and  interesting  localities 
in  California  and  adjacent  desert  regions. 

The  deserts  offer  so  many  obstacles  to  research  that 
they  are  comparatively  unknown.  He  who  braves  the 
perils  and  endures  the  hardships  finds  himself  amply 
repaid,  as  they  offer  one  of  the  most  interesting  fields 
for  exploration  and  nature  study.  The  present  volume 
is  a  faithful  chronicle  of  both  the  deserts'  pleasures  and 
terrors,  dangers  and  delights,  mysteries  and  revelations. 

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The  Romance  of  the 
Colorado  River  :  :  : 

^_  _  _^  _  ___^  _  _^__  _  _!__!_i___  ___    :  ™ 

A  Complete  Account  of  the  Discovery  and  of  the 
Explorations  from  1540  to  the  Present  Time, 
with  Particular  Reference  to  the  two  Voyages  of 
Powell  through  the  Line  of  the  Great  Canyons 


By  FREDERICK  S.  DELLENBAUGH 

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"  As  graphic  and  as  interesting  as  a  novel.  .  .  .  Of  especial  value 
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give,  from  a  single  glance,  an  idea  of  the  vastness  of  the  canyons  and 
their  remarkable  formation,  which  it  would  be  beyond  the  power  of 
pen  to  describe.  And  the  color  reproduction  of  the  water-color  draw- 
ing that  Thomas  Moran  made  of  the  entrance  to  Bright  Angel  Trail 
gives  some  faint  idea  of  the  glories  of  color  which  have  made  the 
Grand  Canyon  the  wonder  and  the  admiration  of  the  world." — The 
Cleveland  Leader. 

41  His  scientific  training,  his  long  experience  in  this  region,  and  his 
eye  for  natural  scenery  enable  him  to  make  this  account  of  the  Col- 
orado River  most  graphic  and  interesting.  No  other  book  equally 
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